


In Dreams

by Wind_Ryder



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Bad Psychiatry, Child Death, Children, Depression, Dreams, Family, Fantasy, Gaslighting, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loss, Loss of Child, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Pain, Poor Eating Habits, Poor Sleeping Habits, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2511620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Steve is frozen, he dreams. The war is over. They're all alive, they made it through. He gets married, he has children, he has the life he's always wanted. Only, there's something wrong about the world he's in. Everything is cold all the time, and they're trapped in a winter that never ends. Until one day, it does. </p><p>When he wakes up, Steve’s lying in a room and it sounds like New York City. There’s a baseball game on, playing from a lifetime ago. </p><p>Everything is wrong. He knows it isn’t real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not happy. It has the illusion of being happy, but it really isn't. You have been warned in advance. Continually, because he's dreaming through much of this story - it is written like he's dreaming. Sequences flow into each other without breaks. There are time jumps and expectations. It is purposefully crafted that way.

Steve wakes up and he’s in a room. It smells like New York, and there’s someone complaining out his window. A car horn blares, the lights don’t work quite right, and sitting at his bedside is a ghost. Bucky’s dressed like he’s about to go to fight again. His blue jacket and brown trousers are all in tip-top shape. There’s even some stitching where it was repaired. There’s a scar on his head, and a sling on his arm, and he looks worse than that day they were reunited in Italy. He’s sitting upright, head tilted towards his chest and breathing deep. He’s asleep, and Steve takes half a moment to consider the fact that ghosts don’t sleep. When Bucky mumbles something incoherently, Steve continues on to consider that ghosts don’t dream either. 

“Bucky?” he asks quietly. Everything hurts; his arms, his legs, his chest. He feels cold, though he’s not sure why. He hasn’t felt cold since before the serum, and yet the chill in his bones is hard to ignore. 

“He’s been at your bedside since we found you,” Peggy tells him. He twists around and she’s standing at the foot of his bed. She’s in uniform, olive green jacket and pencil skirt. Her hair’s done up right and her makeup’s in place. She’s smiling warmly at him, and his mind whirls about as he tries to come up with something to say. “We found him,” Peggy continues. “We went back for him. Some locals were taking care of him, and patched him up until we got there. Then, together, we came and found you.” 

“I-this is real?” Steve breathes out. He can’t believe it. He looks back at Bucky, and can’t help himself. He reaches towards his friend. Bucky’s skin is ice cold, but the touch wakens him from his sleep. He opens his eyes and he looks at Steve and he looks so tired, but so very much alive. 

“Hey,  _hey!_ ” Bucky lifts his good hand and swats it against the back of Steve’s head. He takes the cuff without even blinking, almost sobbing in relief as Bucky starts to shout. “What the hell were you thinking? You don’t go crashing planes, Steve. You just don’t.” 

“You’re alive,” Steve manages, and Bucky’s face twists into something that’s heartbreaking and sheepish, and Steve doesn’t care in the least. He grabs Bucky by the collar and jerks him forward, and they cling to each other a little bit desperately as Steve thanks God they all made it out okay. 

Peggy politely waits until they’ve both finished sobbing into each other’s necks, and then she approaches Steve as well. She’s chastising him with her eyes, tells him he missed their date, and tells him he’s not allowed to miss another. “I won’t,” he swears. He looks at them like they’re his sun and moon, and he drags her down to be held as well. They hold each other, and it’s a bit improper, and Steve thinks they’ll be found out by the nurses soon, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

They’re all alive, and it’s perfect. 

The Commandos march in next. They make a line and one by one they clap Steve on the back. They call him ‘Cap’ and make a joke, and Bucky’s injuries heal as they sit in a New York hospital. The war goes on, because that’s what wars do, and eventually Steve knows they have to go back. Philips confirms as much when he visits him on his last day in the hospital. 

Hydra is gone, but the Nazi war machine is still making its trek through Europe. Steve signs up again without a second thought, and his Commandos come with him. Bucky grins and smiles like it’s perfectly fine, and Steve wonders if Bucky’s going to tell him that it’s not. He hasn’t yet, and they don’t speak about the past, but Steve wonders if maybe one day they should at least give it a shot. 

“Bucky…you don’t have to come with me,” he tells him when he sees the scar on Bucky’s head and the way he holds himself. He walks like it’s his mission to put one foot in front of the other. He doesn’t smile as much. He looks tired all the time. He lives in his uniform, never taking it off or changing it. Steve half thinks he slept in it, but he doesn’t know for sure. 

“And leave you to fight on your own? You know that’s not going to happen,” Bucky tells him with a roll of his eyes. He throws an arm over Steve’s shoulder and knocks their head together. “Besides, if I’m not here, who’s going to keep you from crashing any more planes in the water. You’re helpless without me!” 

It’s the truth, and Steve is  _grateful_ that Bucky isn’t leaving him now. He’s not sure what he’d do if he had to fight without Bucky, but the last time he tried he almost died. Maybe it was best not to push that too much. But sometimes, when Bucky isn’t looking, Steve watches him and can hear the echo of a scream tearing through a frosty canyon. Bucky’s voice is permanently trapped between his ears, screaming and falling farther away. Steve’s terrified of losing him again, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

“Give him the dignity of a choice,” Peggy told Steve when he brings it up to her. They’re standing in the lobby of her hotel, preparing to head back across the ocean for one more trek. She’s packed her bags and they’re waiting for Bucky to check out. They’re watching Bucky flirt with the woman behind the counter, and someone is taking pictures. Steve hates the cameras, the flashes of light, and the lack of privacy. There’s nowhere to talk except surrounded by these people, and he’s learned to accept it. It doesn’t mean he likes it any more. 

“I’ve got to keep him safe,” Steve agrees quietly. Peggy kisses his cheek and scoops up her bag. Bucky’s finished and they’re walking out the door together. Steve watches over both of them, and he wonders how to make sure that Bucky doesn’t come to any harm. He’d do anything to keep that from happening, and he knows that Bucky will too. They have to look out for each other. It’s the only way. 

Peggy stays behind at the war office while they march back into war. They attack the Nazis directly, and after so many months of fighting Hydra and their superior forces, standard soldiers bend like grass in the wind. The Commandos are too good for these fights. They are the front of the army, and they destroy everything that comes in their way. As they bring each city to their knees, they save children and civilians, they free prisoners, and they bring relief to a world that sorely needed their help. Even in the midst of a raging winter – they find success.

Philips isn’t happy. Even as they finally convince Hitler to surrender, they take the fight to Japan. Battles blur together. It seems one moment Steve’s fighting in Dresden, the next minute he’s fighting in Okinawa. Eventually, it does stop. Eventually Japan finally bends. The report comes across the wire.

Bucky, who hasn’t smiled for so long, spreads his lips wide as he grips Steve in a bruising hug. He’s tired and exhausted, covered in scars from countless fights, and yet he’s pulled through. They all have. After Bucky’s near miss - they had all grouped even closer together. They were alive, and no one had fallen to despair. Steve bought the first round, the second round, the third round, the last round, and they all drank to peace and prosperity and the American way. It’s cold, but the drinks warm them up.

They’re in New York again and it feels like they never left. It feels like Steve had just been drinking to good health in Japan when they’re stepping off the ship in New York. There are crowds, and cheers, children waving flags, and women kissing men. Steve finds Peggy and Peggy finds Steve. They kiss each other and someone takes a picture. He thinks he’d like a copy of that photo. He’d put it up on his wall and smile at it every morning. He asks Peggy to marry him and she says yes immediately. Bucky claps him on the shoulder and once more shouts out: “Let’s hear it for Captain America!” 

Gabe is elbowing Dernier, who for some reason didn’t go back to France, and Dernier is making kissing faces at them. Dugan is laughing boisterously, while Falsworth and Morita keep their expressions moderate and professional. Bucky’s happy for him, and it shows on his face. He’s applauding and Peggy’s blushing and it’s all just so perfect. 

Bucky’s sisters rush up to meet them. Rebecca jumps into her brother’s arms; Emma pretends she’s too old for such things. He holds Rebecca up with one arm around her waist as he tugs Emma to his side. He’s crying tears of joy, and Steve pretends he doesn’t notice them as he scans the crowd for Bucky’s parents. They appear, moving at a much more sedate pace then their children. Bucky’s mother kisses Bucky on the cheek, his father wraps and arm around his shoulders and lifts his bag from the ground, then they do the same for Steve. 

Winifred Barnes kisses him just as she did her son. She welcomes him home from the bottom of her heart. She hasn’t seen him since he became Captain America, but she recognizes him anyway. She loves him just the same. It’s perfect, it’s wonderful, and it feels so right. George Barnes comes over and announces proudly to anyone who could hear that Steve Rogers was a hero. Steve laughs because George always thought the only thing he was ever good for was getting Bucky into trouble. Bucky’s embarrassed by it all, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He just flushes and adjusts his hold on Rebecca as he leads everyone home. 

Steve isn’t sure when Peggy moved in, or where the Commandos found housing, but they all stayed together. Each day Peggy and Bucky would be arguing about tiny mundane things like recipes and housing decorations. Commandos would filter in and out of their home, showing up and disappearing again like the ebb and flow of the tide. Steve knows that Peggy and Bucky are always there, and that they always would be. 

He’s standing at the altar getting married, and Bucky’s his best man. Of course he is, who else would be? There’s no one else he’d have. The Commandos are in the first row and Dernier’s dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. Peggy is beautiful. She’s in a hand made gown, and she’s holding out her hand for Steve’s mother’s ring to go on. Steve wishes his mother could have seen her, but he knows she’d approve of this. He slides his mother’s wedding ring on Peggy’s hand. He kisses his wife, and then they’re at the reception. 

Bucky’s dancing with Connie. He’s spinning around and around, and it’s the first time Steve’s seen him out of uniform since the war. He’s in a sharp suit and his hair’s slicked back. He’s tossing her up in the air and catching her as she twirls. He doesn’t stay with her all night. He goes through partners like a man hell bent on dancing, and Steve loses track of them all as his gaze falls down on his wife. Peggy’s beautiful and special. She teases him about everything, and he doesn’t think there’s anyone else in the universe he’d rather have at his side. 

He misses the reception because he’s too focused on her. He finds the pictures later, and in each one he’s staring at Peggy like she’s the center of the universe, and she’s staring at him like everything revolves around him alone. He keeps the photos in a box under the bed, pressed up against the shield that he has no further need for. The press and journalists have stopped and the army leaves him alone, and he’s allowed to hang up the uniform and just be Steve Rogers again. Sometimes, when he’s very cold, he digs under his bed for a blanket he knows isn’t stored there. He finds his shield and realizes it’s been so longs since he’s had to use it. Then he sees the box of photos, and he puts the shield away to look at the pictures instead. The photos chase away all thoughts of the past. There’s no fight anymore. There’s only peace. It’s what he’s always wanted.

Bucky knocks on the door one night, while Steve’s making a stew Peggy likes. He lets Bucky in and he watches as Bucky paces back and forth around the house like a caged tiger. He doesn’t make a lick of sense, and eventually Steve has to physically grab him by both shoulders and shake him until he finally stops. 

“Connie’s pregnant, and it’s mine,” Bucky breathes out, eyes wide and slightly alarmed. Steve’s dumbfounded and he doesn’t know what to say. He always knew Bucky would be a father, and a good one, but all those jokes about Bucky playing fast and loose were supposed to be just that. Connie was married to another soldier boy that came home before they did. She’d always been sweet on Bucky, but an extra-marital affair wasn’t something either of them should have been playing with. Steve doesn’t even know what they can do about it. 

“You sure?” 

“She said Jack’s been limp since the war, they haven’t done anything in  _months,”_ Bucky’s running his hands through his hair, and he’s starting to pace again. Peggy comes in and she looks between them both in confusion. She’s been getting round herself, their post-marital joining being  _very_ successful. There are only weeks away before the baby comes, and everyone’s already taken to calling it “Private Rogers” as a joke. Howard’s promised not to make it jump through the ranks like Steve did, though, and Steve’s absurdly grateful for that. Peggy’s just thought it’s been amusing. 

“And you’re sure it’s yours,” Steve wants to confirm. Connie’s a good enough girl, but if she was sleeping around with Bucky then there was always a chance she’s sleeping around with someone else too. Bucky glares at him and starts shouting vitriol, and Peggy needs to get between them. 

“Calm down,” she orders. She places a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and pushes him onto the couch. “What’s Connie planning?” she asks, and Bucky hitches his shoulders up. 

“She’s gonna say its Jack’s.” It could work. Jack’s got dark hair and a rounded face like Bucky.  But aside from that they look nothing alike. The whole town’s gonna know the truth, and Steve doesn’t know how Bucky always gets himself into these positions, but he always does. It’s frightening and terrifying, and Steve wishes he’d have an answer for this kind of thing by now. 

Peggy pats Bucky’s leg and then goes to get her coat and scarf. There’s a chill in the air and she has to keep warm. She says she’s going to check in on Connie, and doesn’t let them say anything in protest. She rushes out the door and Steve’s left serving Bucky stew and thinking about the babies on their way. When Peggy comes back she gives Bucky a hug, and he cries in her arms until he falls asleep. She tells Steve later that Connie’s determined to make it work with Jack and now that she’s got a baby, she doesn’t want to see Bucky ever again. She’s going to get Jack to lay with her if it’s the last thing she does, and he’ll never be any wiser. Bucky knew it from the start, and Steve’s heart breaks for him. 

Bucky walks around town and pretends that he’s okay, and Steve watches him watch Connie grow. Jack’s strutting about like he’s the one who put the baby in her belly, and every time he toasts himself at a bar, Steve needs to pull Bucky away before he gets into a few fights on his own. The Commandos figure it out real quick, and they spend several weeks getting Bucky roaring drunk. He’s with so many girls after that, that Steve half wonders if Bucky’s going to end up being a father to a litter of bastards. Peggy mutters about how Connie’s in confession and has become quite the proud churchgoer. “It’s indecent,” she declares as she waves wraps a shawl around her body. 

By the time Peggy’s due, Bucky’s mostly in a constant state of intoxication. It’s not just Connie, and Steve knows that as much as the Commandos. Jim, regretfully, commented on how they should have known better than to get Bucky so drunk all the time. Steve doesn’t blame them for it. It’s a slippery slope they’ve all been sliding down. Bucky, like always, is just the first to take the plunge. He manages to pull himself together enough to rally his mother and sisters for the birth, though. He’s sweating from drink, he smells like a distillery, and he’s shaky on his feet, but he still manages to get them all to Peggy’s side for the delivery. 

George makes a pot of coffee, boiling it on the stove as he shoots sympathetic looks to both his son and Steve. Steve nibbles on his thumbnail while Bucky tries not to puke, and his father works to get him sober again. Gabe and Dernier show up first, they immediately start chattering about in French as they wince at each gasping breath Peggy made from within her room. They’re not allowed to enter, but they make it a point to at least occupy the sitting area.

The baby is born after hours of ringing hands and concerned looks. Bucky’s managed sobriety, and even Philips is here. He’s chomping on a cigar in the back with Falsworth, and they both look terribly unsettled by the idea that there was a tiny person growing inside of Agent Peggy Carter. Winifred ushers Steve in, and Bucky’s practically glued to his hip the whole while. She puts up a fuss about letting Bucky in as well, but Peggy says it’s pointless to keep Bucky out of anything that happens in their marriage. Bucky’s embarrassed by the comment, but sheepishly slides in after Steve. Peggy gives him an utterly undignified expression, all but ordering him to stand up straight like the Sergeant she knows he is. 

She’s holding her baby like its a football and she passes it to Steve like its a live grenade. Its squirming and flushed red, blood is still in its hair and it needs to be toweled off a bit more, but it’s obvious that Peggy couldn’t wait to show him. “He’s a boy,” she informs Steve proudly, and Steve knows she could have given birth to a turnip and it would have been just as. There’s a little fluff of dark blonde hair on his head, and his eyes are bright blue. His eyes are closed and his cheeks are squished. His lips are pursed outwards in sloppy dissatisfaction, tongue peeking between them. His arms are up by his ears, and he’s wiggling his little fingers. “His name is James,” Peggy continues, and they hadn’t talked about it, but Steve couldn’t think of anything else he’d name his son. 

He hears Bucky’s breath hitch and he turns to see his friend slump against Peggy’s bed. He’s got tears in his eyes, and he’s shaking his head like he’s denying everything. “You can’t name your kid after me, what’ll the neighbors say?” he asks them, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes. 

“They’ll say that I wouldn’t even be alive today without you, and that it’s the least I could do,” Steve tells him firmly. Winifred, Rebecca, and Emma have started to get a bit misty as well, and Bucky coughs as he tries to pull himself together. “Come here and hold your godson, you jerk.” Steve turns and presses James into Bucky’s arms and he holds the baby close. “Besides, we’ve got three Jameses in this house already, might as well add one more.” That gets a laugh out of Bucky who shakes his head and smiles down at the baby. 

“It’s a safe bet you’re honoring someone,” he agrees. 

“Good, because our second name was Chester, and I’m not quite sure Philips could handle the shock,” Peggy tells him bluntly. They all laugh at that, and there is a knock at the door as impatient houseguests wanted to know if they could see the baby too. Little James Rogers is carried out to meet his extended family. Everyone agrees his name is perfect, and Phillips says, “he’s still skinny.” It’s a joke only Peggy seems to understand, and she’s got laugh lines replacing her pain lines that last all night. She’s sweaty and exhausted, but Steve knows she couldn’t be happier. Neither could he. 

In his diary, Steve writes out James’ full name. James Gabriel Timothy Jacques Rogers. It’s a mouthful, and Steve knows it. He knows that there’s so much history in that name, and he’s given his son large shoes to fill. He doesn’t care. They all fought through a war at each other’s sides, and Steve knows this child was only born because of them. Peggy makes him promise the next one won’t be named after their war buddies, and Steve sheepishly agrees. Howard and Phillips take it in stride; neither of them was interested in children in any case.

Steve takes James everywhere. Howard makes him a tiny backpack, jokingly dying it red, white, and blue. He gives James a knit hat with the SSR wings on the side. Steve carries his son like he’s carrying his shield, slung onto his back and omnipresent. The only time he’s not with his son is when his son is with Bucky. Bucky can’t seem to get enough of the tiny fingers and toes, and he keeps bringing up memories about when Steve was small. 

Bucky’s so enamored with James that he’s barely aware of it when Connie gives birth to his daughter. Steve is too. He finds out about it when he runs into Connie on the street. James is tugging on the hair on the back of his head, and he’s being reminded with each yank that he needs to get it cut. Connie’s pushing a pram, and they actually collide with each other. Steve comes up short and gapes at the baby in the carriage, and Connie looks mortified. She starts trying to talk her way out of saying anything, but he’s too busy looking at the child to care. 

Bucky’s daughter is swathed in pink. She has his eyes and his chin, and his little button nose. She’s staring up at Steve like she’s been waiting for him since the day she was born. “What’s her name?” Steve asks, because he’s going to tell Bucky. Connie’s fingers tighten around the push bar of the pram, and James babbles unhappily that they’d stopped moving. 

“I really don’t see how that’s any of your-”

“ _What’s her name?_ ” Steve asks again. He makes no attempt to hide how unhappy he is with Connie. She made a decision to cuckold Jack, and Bucky was the one to take the fall. 

“Her name’s Catherine.” She looks uncertain, and he has no idea why. It doesn’t matter what her name is. The fact remained that Catherine is her name now. Steve wants to hold her, wants to introduce her to James. He wants to see his son and Bucky’s daughter playing on the floor of his home. He wants Bucky to have the happy ending he deserved. “Now, I have to go to church,” Connie says carefully. Steve steps out of the way, and watches as she hurriedly pushes the pram down the slush covered sidewalk. James is kicking him in the kidneys with little baby legs, and Steve takes that as his cue to keep walking. 

He wants many things, but a part of him always knew that Bucky’s attitude towards women and responsibility was going to end up like this. It hurts. He finds Bucky at home. He’s chatting with Peggy about some long forgotten memory, and as soon as he sees Steve walk in, he’s retrieving James and making faces at his godson. He would be a good parent, Steve knows, if he ever had the chance. 

“Her name’s Catherine,” he hears himself say. Bucky freezes in place. He doesn’t ask for clarification. He just takes in the information he’s given. He leans down and presses a kiss to James’ cheek. 

“Come on, Jamie, give me a smile,” Bucky says. He doesn’t talk about Catherine. That’s what he’s good at, Steve realizes. Not talking. That really should change. 

It’s nighttime, and Bucky’s staring out the window. It’s raining, and Peggy and James are asleep. Bucky’s upset, and Steve doesn’t think he’s going to be able to make it better. “Was she healthy?” he asks, and Steve tells him she was. “She was…okay?” 

“Looked like,” Steve agrees softly. Bucky hasn’t gotten drunk since James’ birth, but it looks like he wants to now. He pulls his knees up to his chest, and he looks just like a kid. Steve sits with him in silence, and thinks about Catherine and Connie and Jack. “You could find another gal,” he starts. “You’re a war hero, Bucky, shouldn’t take you long to find a dame.” Bucky huffs a laugh and shakes his head. 

“War heroes are a dime a dozen these days,” Bucky tells him quietly. “Sides, I don’t got time for a dame. Barely have enough time for you all, how’m I supposed to handle a girl on top of all this?”

“Are you all right?” Steve asks him. He hasn’t asked him so many times before. He’s avoided it since Italy, and Bucky has avoided it just as much. They don’t talk about pains and hurts. They just don’t. Now Bucky sits at Steve’s side, and he looks just as bad as he did when they first got home. Except he’s not drunk, he’s not freshly home from war, he’s just existing. He doesn’t look right, and Steve knows it’s been like this for far too long. But the war’s over, Hitler’s been brought up on war crimes, and everyone’s moving on with their lives. 

Snow flurries out the window. “I’m fine,” Bucky smiles like he’s got something to hide, and Steve shakes his head. 

“You ain’t been fine since I found you in Zola’s-”

“Don’t say his name.” Bucky’s fingers tighten around his arms, and Steve stops. He knows he’s looking at Bucky like he’s about to burst. He knows Bucky hates the look on his face. He can’t help it. They should have talked about this ages ago, but with all the new and wonderful things going on, they just never got around to it. 

“You’re not okay, are you?” Steve asks him. It takes an hour, but eventually Bucky shakes his head to the left sharply. Steve opens his arms, and Bucky pitches towards him. He’s crying, and he keeps saying it’s not fair. 

It isn’t, and Steve knows they can’t fix it. The only thing they can do is endure. He lets Bucky cry, and he listens as Bucky finally tells him that there’s a big thick cloud of darkness stuffed behind his heart that can’t be let out. Zola put it there in Azzano, and Bucky doesn’t know how to be rid of it. The darkness grows with each day, and it feels like an effort just to get out of the bed in the morning. He’s tired all the time, and he doesn’t know what could possibly make him happy anymore. Connie might have been a start, but her rejection was sharp and permanent. Bucky is afraid of what would happen if he pushed again, and Steve was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

“You can stay as long as you like, you know. James is your godson, and you know I trust him with you.” Bucky nods his head. 

“Thanks, Rogers.” He’s still miserable, but at least he has a home. It’s the best Steve can do for now. He’ll work out how to fix the rest later. 

James and Bucky become accomplices. As soon as James can walk, he and Bucky are almost constantly out and about. Bucky teaches him how to build snow people, and Steve watches them with a fond smile. He and Peggy decide on another child, and they’re both happy to get a little girl. They name her Sarah Margaret Rogers, and she’s just as blonde as Steve. James quickly decides that his sister is the enemy and proceeds to complain loudly about her to anyone who could hear.

Steve has to discipline him for the first time and he nearly had a breakdown in the attempt. “I can’t, I can’t,” he tells Peggy. His father had beaten him and his mother worse than any man had ever beaten his family before. He couldn’t bear it if James grew up thinking that he was just as awful as that man. Bucky scowls at him and drags James off. He comes back a few hours later and James tearfully tells Steve and Peggy that he’s sorry for being so mean to Sarah and that he won’t be bad in the future. 

Peggy asks him, once, what he did to James, and Bucky rolls his eyes. “I let Becca and Emma tell him a thing or two about siblings and a brother’s duty. It clearly worked.” 

Steve laughs at that, because he can just imagine Bucky’s sisters giving James the run around. They probably enjoyed it too. Steve ruffles James’ hair and his son gives him a long-suffering expression. He’s getting so big, and his vocabulary is so advanced. Steve couldn’t be more proud. Every day he seems to have grown years. Even Sarah’s growing fast. James will have his work come out for him as an older brother soon. Steve can’t wait.

They go out as a family together, side-by-side. Bucky’s always with them. He looks after James while Peggy tends to Sarah, and Steve watches over them all. They’re his family, and he only wishes Catherine could be there too. They see her sometimes. She’s just as tall as James and she looks just like her father. Her brown hair’s always done up nicely and she’s always wearing a pretty dress. She’ll be a heartbreaker just like Bucky, and Steve can see how much it hurts him to know that.

Bucky doesn’t seem to know whether he wants to go and introduce himself, or just watch her from afar. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to want to look at her at all. He turns his head away and Steve always distracts him when he can. It doesn’t always work. Bucky sneaks glances as his daughter and he smiles wearily towards her. He watches her grow and he doesn’t say a word.

She’s seven years old, and they still haven’t met properly, but there’s a bruise on her cheek and Steve sees it before Bucky. He sees it only moments before, and he still doesn’t have time to stop Bucky from reacting. Bucky’s back tightens and his eyes narrow. He breathes heavily and he has to force himself to calm down as he approaches his daughter. She’s sitting on a park bench, hugging her schoolbooks to her chest. Her dress is torn and her stockings have a run. She’s been crying long enough for her cheeks to turn splotchy. She’s sniffling and there’s snot running down her face. It makes the bruise stand out worse, and Bucky looks near murderous as he approaches.

He manages to get his features under control long enough to appear mostly non-threatening. It works, because Catherine doesn’t get frightened off by him. If anything, she just cries harder onto the spines of her books. “What’re you crying for, darling?” he asks her gently. It’s the same voice he’s used on Sarah and James when they were upset. He’s been a godfather twice over now, and Steve’s been thinking about number three. Bucky’s used to this, and so Steve hangs back. Bucky deserves this chance, even though Connie won’t like it.

“It’s not my fault,” Catherine tells him. She sniffs loudly and looks up at him with all the righteous pride that Bucky maintained.

“Oh, I know it’s not, darling, not your fault at all. Why’re you so upset, though?” He reaches up and places one stray lock behind her ear. She swipes more tears away and the bruise seems to spread. There’s also a cut on her lip, and Steve knows Bucky’s doing everything in his power not to frighten his daughter with the rage that’s boiling under his skin. Steve almost reaches out to touch him, almost squeezes his shoulder as a reminder to stay calm.

“I didn’t mean to make him mad,” Catherine continues. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Make who mad, sweetheart?” Bucky asks.

“You get away from her!” They spin about and Catherine cries harder as Jack and Connie come rushing forward. Connie looks pale and out of breath, and she’s got a split lip of her own. Jack’s knuckles are bruised and there’s no doubt where the tears and wounds came from. Bucky goes violently still at Steve’s side, and Steve knows that it’s a precursor to so much more. “You, _you’re_ the one who thought you’d get away with it, aren’t you?”

“Jack, calm down,” Steve tries. He puts his hands up in a placating manner.

“You know what he’s done? You know what he’s done to me?” Jack seethed. Catherine’s sobbing, and Bucky does what Bucky always does. He looks after the little guy. He turns his back on Jack, knowing Steve won’t let Jack anywhere near them, and he kneels before Catherine. He takes his hands and cups her wet face and he tilts her head up so they look in each other’s eyes.

“Do you know a James Rogers? He’s a little blonde boy about your age, lives over on Dixon.”

“He’s in my grade,” Catherine nods. Her eyes keep going back to Jack and Connie. She’s still crying.

“He’s playing with his sister and ma over by the swings right now.  I want you to go over there while your parents and I have a talk, okay? You go on right now, and nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re going to be safe. I promise. Now go,” he gives her a nudge and she takes off running. She doesn’t look back. By the time Bucky turns around, Jack’s fuming mad, and Steve’s more proud than he has any right to be. He did right by Catherine, and that’s all that mattered. “You put your hands on Connie and the kid, Jack?” Bucky asks, keeping his voice level.

“You put that baby in her belly, Sarg?” Jack hisses.

“We didn’t fight a war against fascism so you could go beat those who can’t fight back,” Bucky tells him.

“That’s a bastard I’ve been paying for,” Jack points after Catherine.

“You put your hands on her and Connie?” Bucky asks again.

“So what if I did?” Steve doesn’t even see Bucky move. He threw himself passed Steve’s arm and lands a punch solidly on Jack’s jaw. Jack goes flying to the ground and Bucky follows after him. Connie screaming – telling him to stop, but for every tear in Catherine’s dress or bruise on her tiny body, Bucky returns in kind.

“Get off! Get off my husband! Get off!” Connie slaps at Bucky’s arm and Steve knows Bucky’ll kill him if he keeps at it. He pulls Bucky backwards and Connie helps Jack sit up.

“That’s not my daughter,” Jack growls. “That’s not my daughter, and if she comes to me for anything – I’ll throw her in the streets with her whore mother!”

“Don’t you call her that-” Connie slaps Bucky across the face.

“Stop it, you horrible, horrible man. You’ve ruined everything!” Bucky’s never struck a woman before, but Steve’s fairly certain he’s getting close. Jack’s leaning on Connie and Connie’s fussing over his injuries, and neither of them seem to care that Jack’s just disowned his seven-year-old child.

“What’s going to happen to Catherine?” Steve asks, and Jack glares.

“She die in the gutter for all I care,” Jack spits. He turns and limps off, Connie helping him the whole while. She glances back just long enough to glare at Bucky before returning her attention to her husband.

Bucky doesn’t think twice. He twists on his heel and all but rushes to the swings. Catherine’s tucked up in Peggy’s arms and Peggy’s rocking her as she hums an English melody. James is hovering nearby, unhappy and uncertain. Sarah looks confused as well. Steve goes to his children while Bucky goes to Catherine.

“Why’s she all hurt? I though girls weren’t supposed to get hurt like boys?” James asks.

“They’re not. A very sad man did something very bad,” Steve tells him. His hearing has always been good since the serum, and he can just make out the sound of Bucky asking Catherine if she’d like to stay with them for a while. She says yes, and Bucky holds his daughter for the first time. They’re both crying a little, and they’re both uncertain, but it’s a start no matter how awful the circumstances.

Bucky takes to fatherhood as well as everyone thought he would. He’s good with Catherine and Catherine’s good with him. She’s skittish and nervous and she jumps whenever anyone shouts, so he keeps his voice quiet and he’s always very polite. She’s treated like a princess, and she knows it too. Bucky takes her for dinner at his parents, and he introduces her to her relatives. He doesn’t tell her that he’s her biological father, and she doesn’t call him ‘dad.’

She calls him ‘Bucky’ just like everyone else, and Steve wonders if he likes that or not. Bucky never complains. He answers to his name like she’s calling him ‘papa,’ and he smiles whenever she speaks.

Steve takes Peggy dancing. He’s embarrassed and worried the whole time, but he promised Peggy and so he does it anyway. No one makes fun, no one complains. They stand out of the way and the music plays, and they dance together. Peggy’s beautiful. She’s smiling at him like he’s one of a kind, and he can’t help but think the same about her. She’s more than just his wife. She’s a best-friend equal to Bucky, and the one he spends his time whispering secrets to in the dark. He treasures her, honors her, and dances with her. She deserves the world on a silver platter. He holds her close and rocks her to the sound of the music. He doesn’t step on her feet. He doesn’t falter. He knows what he’s doing. It’s exactly what Peggy deserves. She tells him he worries each time for no reason, and he agrees because it’s true. 

He treats her to dinner. They don’t need to worry about money. They never will again. He’s well compensated by the government for his services, and he pays for everything. He keeps her in fine dresses and good makeup, and she thanks him as she twirls about the house. Once, when they were out and about, someone made a comment about her pretty dress and she popped the man in the nose. Peggy liked to look like a lady, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t still have that spark of fire in her that sent Hodges to the dirt back in bootcamp. 

“I am a woman,” she declares to anyone who complains. “I like my heels, and my skirts, and my jewelry. I also like my trousers and my guns, so do please stop shoving your stereotypes on me.” Steve tells her, more than once, that he’d expect nothing less of her. He doesn’t care in the slightest that people around town think it’s unbecoming. 

He knows Peggy’s already started teaching Sarah how to fight. She’s had far more success with Catherine, though. Catherine, who’s already seen what it’s like to be at the receiving end of a few knocks she never deserved, learns well. Once, when James was playing too rough, Catherine sent him to his knees with a sharp kick between his legs. Peggy told James to behave better next time, and then helped fix Catherine’s hair where it had fallen slightly out of place. 

Steve knew that James was embarrassed by it. He always looked nervous at the thought of Catherine telling someone that she’d beaten him, but she never did. “It’s unbecoming to gloat,” she said once, primly. She smoothed down her skirt and adjusted her shirtsleeves, hiding the fact that she had a touch more muscle than most little girls her age. 

She started to dress and act like Peggy. They go out together all the time, and Steve can’t help but notice the little changes in the girl. The older she gets, the more traits she picks up from his wife. He likes seeing her gain confidence, and he knows Peggy enjoys it as well. Sarah trails after them both, but she doesn’t seem as interested in the more brutal methods Peggy can teach. She likes the stories, but she doesn’t want to participate. Catherine is quite the opposite. 

“No one’s going to hit me again,” Catherine announces proudly. Steve knows that it’s the truth. The next person who tries will get the full force of her wrath, and if by some manner of misfortune she does get hurt, she has an entire crew of champions who will take up her banner against her attacker. 

Steve and Peggy dance together at least once a week. They walk to the club and they spend hours in each other’s arms. They talk about the children, they talk about personal matters, they talk about their lives. Their weekly outings are the few times they have solely to themselves. Their home is lovely, but there are three children and Bucky in it. Privacy is a difficult thing to come by. 

Bucky tries to give them their moments. Steve knows that he’s always working to scuttle the kids out of the house so they can make time together. It’s hard to manage three of them, though, and scheduling doesn’t always work for the best. These nights are special. They don’t ever take them for granted. 

Steve draws these nights in his notebooks. He colors in the dance floor and he puts Peggy front and center. Her eyes are wide, her smile big, her face flushed with excitement. She’s gorgeous both in reality and on the page, and Steve tells her this each time they go out. He tells her it every morning too, but she never believes him right away. She just rolls her eyes and taps his cheek lovingly, before telling him it’s time to get up. 

Steve asks Peggy if she wants another child, and Peggy considers it for a long while before deciding that it would be nice to have another boy or girl running about the house. They’ll be tripping over children soon, but Catherine and James are almost ten and they can help look after the baby now. 

They walk arm in arm back to the house, and they step inside to find a pitched battle in the middle of the sitting room. Bucky and James, with an army of tiny green soldiers, are discussing strategy on the only corner left that they have been permitted to occupy, while Sarah and Catherine proudly have taken over the other 85% of their territory. Furniture has been moved, toys have been gathered, and the war was clearly devastating for the men. 

“Having trouble?” Peggy asks wryly. 

“They cheat,” James mutters in frustration. Bucky looks like he's about to laugh, but thinks better of it at the last minute. He looks up at Steve like he’s lost years off his life. The echoes of the war have fallen from his face, and he seems more alive then he has in years. His big, thick, cloud of darkness seems to have lessened. It’s so refreshing to see.

Steve doesn’t know why, but he’s suddenly terribly cold. He shivers violently and he looks towards the window. It’s cracked slightly, and he goes to shut it. His family watches him with concern, and he drops his gaze to his children’s bare feet. “Socks, all of you, you’ll catch your death like this.” They don’t protest; they just scurry off to change into warmer clothes, knowing he hadn’t just meant socks. 

Bucky unfolds himself from his corner and tilts his head in concern. “You all right, pal?” he asks carefully. Steve nods his head. 

“Yeah, it’s just…it’s cold in here, isn’t it?” Peggy reaches towards him and wraps her fingers around his tie. She’s smiling naughtily, and Steve’s attention shifts sharply away from the temperature. 

“I think I best warm you up then, hmm? Seems to me James needs that brother or else he’s never going to manage to take over the sitting room again.” She kisses him firmly, and Bucky chokes on a laugh as he scurries out to find the children and keep them in their rooms. Steve’s grateful. He’s got plans. 

They get what they want. 

The twins are wonderful. Boy and girl. James is happy and so is Sarah. They each claim a sibling, and Catherine declares victory over the war before the infants are even old enough to take a side. Catherine quietly instructs Sarah that they’ll need to subvert baby Ian before he’s corrupted, and James hatefully tells Catherine to mind her own business. Peggy, Steve, and Bucky are left to moderate the chaos, but it seems that little Ian Seth and Meghan Rose aren’t going to have much say in this particular feud. 

They take the family over to Manhattan to see Howard, and he shows them all the new inventions he’s creating. He finally fixed the flying car and they take it home that night. The children are ecstatic as they fly across city roads. Sarah, who has developed a love for tiny animals, is particularly pleased the squirrels will no longer be in jeopardy. Howard nods gravely when she tells him this, and explains that it was precisely for squirrel-kind that the car was created. She tells him he’s all right for a man, and he thanks her for her show of appreciation. 

Ian and Meghan are both indifferent to the flying car, and squirrel rights, and sleep through the whole proceedings. It’s a blessing that they don’t have to worry about such things and so the entire trip is passed with limited discomfort. They visit Gabe while they’re at it. He’s got a crew of children of his own, and they all play so nicely together. 

“You look happy,” Gabe comments, and Steve can’t help but nod. 

“I am. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m so grateful…we all made it out, and we all have the lives we hoped for.” Gabe’s a professor at a local university. Jim made it to be a doctor. Dugan had a mechanic’s shop. Falsworth was happily unemployed and living off his family’s money. Dernier had a cafe where he enjoyed setting things on fire and seeing his customers jump in surprise. 

Of all the Commandos, the children liked visiting Dernier the most. He makes the best pastries around, and they sit at his counter and watched him make food look like art. These children never knew hunger. They never knew starvation. Steve was so grateful for that. They all chatted about their favorite cake, and Steve could remember growing up not even daring to look at cake because it wouldn’t be worth the expense. These children were blessed, and Steve thanks God every day for it. 

Steve is in church, watching Catherine and James get confirmed. They’re dressed in their most expensive clothes to date, and they’re both glowing with excitement. They’re fifteen, and Steve doesn’t know where the time went, but he doesn’t care. James looks just like his mother, Catherine looks just like her father, and they’re both right where they should be. 

When the service is over, Bucky places a silver locket around his daughter’s neck. It’s a family heirloom that his mother gave to him just for this moment. The entire Barnes clan is there and they all look so proud of Catherine that it hurts when she keeps scanning the crowd for the man and woman who first raised her. Connie, a fervent churchgoer, had attended the service, and Steve watches Catherine go to her mother. Connie hasn’t been a part of Catherine’s life in eight years, and yet she still manages to make an impact. 

Catherine looks at her mother like she was an angel, and Bucky can do nothing but watch as his daughter agrees to go off with her. Jack’s there too, and Bucky’s biting back frustration as Jack manages an apology. Catherine hugs him, and Jack hugs her. She turns to Bucky and asks to leave. “They’re my parents, Bucky,” Catherine explains. “My _real_ family, I just want to spend time with them instead.” Bucky doesn’t argue, and so Catherine leaves with Jack and Connie. Steve watches as Bucky turns to fuss over James, but his movements are purposeful and slow. His heart’s not in it.

They go out to dinner together at Dernier’s restaurant, and Peggy looks after Bucky. She makes sure he eats, makes sure he’s taking part in the conversation. Steve can see Bucky start to slip back into old habits, and he reaches out to give Bucky’s shoulder a squeeze. He knows that if Catherine doesn’t come home tonight, Bucky will likely be out drinking with the Commandos the next day. 

It’s snowing outside, and when the door opens the girl that enters needs to shake flakes from her hair. Catherine’s there, still wearing her pretty dress, still with ribbons in her hair. She’s wearing her fancy coat and her silver locket’s around her neck. She finds Bucky immediately, and Bucky finds her. She bounds to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He holds her just as tight, and strokes his fingers through her hair. 

“I’m sorry, Buck- _papa_ ,” she says quietly. “I didn’t know.” Those old enough to understand politely turn away, but Meghan tugs on Peggy’s arm and asks what’s going on. 

“Never you mind,” Peggy tells her. “Eat your cake.” 

They sit together, father and daughter, truly knowing each other for the first time. Bucky’s face is frozen in stunned wonder, and Catherine hides behind a curtain of long brown hair. James distracts all evening. He talks too loud, and he waves his hand too much. The children look to him and slowly stop noticing Catherine and Bucky, and later Steve tells him how proud of him he is. 

Catherine does too, in her own way. After that, she tells Sarah and Meghan that James is “on the level.” They grudgingly agree to a ceasefire, and he’s allowed back onto the couch in the sitting room. It’s a tenuous compromise, and Ian’s only allowed to join him if he’s washed himself properly. James promises to keep Ian clean, and it seems for once there might be harmony in the household. It’s a miracle. 

It surprises absolutely no one when, less than a month later, James finally musters the courage to ask Catherine out to a dance of their own. Well, it doesn’t surprise him, but Bucky’s mortified when it finally happens. Peggy’s too busy laughing to have give an opinion. She’s got one hand pressed to her mouth and she’s laughing so hard there are tears falling from her eyes. Bucky glares at her unhappily, as both Catherine and James decide its best to leave the house for now. 

“I thought she thought James smelled funny,” Bucky tries, looking terribly uncertain as he turns to Steve for help. 

“That was Sarah and Meghan, and I think they’ve gotten over it.” Steve pats Bucky on the shoulder. “Looks like we really will be family soon enough.” That doesn’t seem to make Bucky any happier, and he stubbornly tries to find his footing in his new role as “papa.”

Catherine’s learned that Bucky will do just about anything if she calls him that, and has him wrapped around her finger more than ever before. She gets away with murder, and even though Bucky’s aware of it. He doesn’t do anything to stop it. Steve’s certain he just doesn’t care. 

While their teenagers acquaint themselves with their puppy love, Steve finds that he has far more time to spend with his younger children. Sarah has decided to play on the women’s baseball team, and he takes her out to the field to teach her how to throw and catch. She’s quite good at it, and they toss a ball around for hours. 

Steve takes her to baseball games, and she sits proudly in her tiny Dodger’s uniform that Peggy sewed “Rogers” on the back of. She’s got a blue cap on her head almost always, and knows more about the game than even him. She rattles off numbers and scores and she draws her favorite players in a notebook with hearts around their heads. “But it’s not like Cat and Jimmy, they’re just gross,” Sarah assures him. Steve has no idea what that means, and every time he asks Peggy she starts laughing again. 

She’s been doing that a lot lately. He’s had to take her in hand and give her a reason to laugh more than once, but she’s turned it right around on him. He’s far more ticklish than she is and they ended up tumbling on their bed giggling like fools until they were found out. Ian’s caught them twice now, and Meghan convinced him that’s how babies were made. Peggy started laughing hysterically at that too, once she found out, which left Steve to fumble through the explanation that it didn’t  _quite_ work like that. 

“But…you’re rolling around on the bed together,” Ian pointed out logically. Steve had turned to Bucky for help, but he held up his hands. 

“I’ve already given the sex talk to  _one_ of your children, this one’s on you.” 

“Which one?” Steve wondered.

“Which one do you think?” Bucky shot back, crossing his arms over his chest and sulking as Peggy continued to fall into hysterics. Steve had been wondering why James looked more than a little nervous around Bucky lately. It seemed every time he entered the room he quickly avoided Bucky as best he could. Peggy, naturally, thought it was highly amusing. 

“Oh come now, Steve, don’t you want to picture the grandchildren? Barnes and Rogers: together forever, through thick and thin. You’ll never get away from it.” 

“The world’s not ready for that combination just yet,” Bucky declares, and Steve had to agree. It seemed a bit…much. 

Ian and Meghan are already planning the wedding. They talk to James about it constantly, and Meghan’s made Catherine promise to have her be her flower girl. Sarah’s secured a position, under much duress, as Catherine’s maid of honor, though she strongly opposed the union. Neither James nor Catherine ever mentioned anything about a marriage, but they indulged the siblings anyway. 

Steve is cold. He checks the house again and again, and the fire is lit all the time. It doesn’t change the fact that it feels like there is ice growing on the walls. He doesn’t understand why it is cold all the time. The forecast says it’s going to be a long winter, and it feels like they’re right. It doesn’t feel like the winter is ever going to be over. 

James and Catherine are named Homecoming King and Queen. They turn eighteen and James gives her a promise ring. Bucky’s spitting mad about it, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s grudgingly come to accept that if there’s one thing Barnes’ and Rogers’ are good at, it’s sticking together. 

Sarah makes baseball team, and she’s the star of the sport. She pitches faster than any man alive, and Steve knows that talent scouts are interested in pulling her into the majors once she’s old enough. Steve takes her to the field as often as he can. He watches her throw ball after ball. She’s a decent batter too, and he brims with pride with each home run.

Lois Florreich even comes around to talk to her about her talent. Sarah looks at her with stars in her eyes, and Steve knows that no one could have prepared her for such joy. Lois encourages Sarah to play as hard and as fast as she can, and Sarah takes each comment to heart. Lois teaches her how to do her hair and makeup properly, and even gives her a cap to keep her hair out of her face.

The AAGPBL integrated with the men’s league after the war, and the rules and regulations changed in order to better ensure the women could play just as well as the men. When Lois asked Sarah what her dream was, Sarah told her she wanted to play for the Dodgers. “Then that’s exactly what you should do. Never stop until you’re up there on that pitcher’s mound,” Lois encourages.

Of all the things that Steve could give to his daughter, her throwing arm is something that makes him smile the most. She’s going to do it, he knows. She’s going to make the Dodgers, and she’s going to win game after game with them. When she looks to Steve for encouragement, he reaches out a hand and smoothes it over her hair. “You’re going to do so well,” he promises her.

The snow continues to fall.

Ian and Meghan are even more proficient at snowperson building than their siblings. They make hundreds of them. They line them up down the sidewalk, sculpting them so they look exactly like real people. Steve watches them work, and he identifies their subjects each time. They learn how to make dogs, cats, and even geese. Peggy joins them more than once. She adds military ranks to soldier uniforms and makes sure that their likenesses remain accurate.

It’s a good thing they have flying cars, because the snow tends to mount so high that Steve can’t remember the last time he saw the road. Howard admits he thought the endless winter was coming. He switched gears early on from military operations to sustenance. That was good, because once the war ended all wars ended with it. There was no one left to fight, kill, or maim. There was a great need for food, though. Howard made a line of products that just spat out real food at the push of a button. No one was starving anymore. No one spent money on anything anymore. The winter was cold, but it didn’t hurt anyone. They all survived just fine.

Steve gets hit in the face with a snowball, and he turns to his twins with a great grin. They’re quickly deciding on strategy, and Peggy’s taking photos of them as Steve rushes towards them. He picks them up and deposits them in snow mounds. They’re laughing and giggling, and Sarah joins in to help defend them. She throws snowball after snowball with her alarmingly strong arm. He laughs and dodges, and he finds his shield on his arm.  

He takes a moment to stare at it in surprise, he doesn’t remember getting it, but Sarah keeps throwing snowballs and he uses it to block the incoming fire. The twins are cheering her on, and he kicks snow on them in return. He turns to look at the street that no one drives on anymore, and watches as the road forms a hill.

“Come on, come here,” He calls to his group. Ian and Meghan approach, and Sarah pauses in her assault as they look at him curiously. He lowers the shield onto the ground upside down, and he carefully sits on it. He holds out his arms. The twins cuddle close, one on each side. Sarah shakes her head. She’s getting so big. She’s too big for this. He grins at her anyway, promises her next run, and he pulls his legs up onto the shield.

Gravity does the rest. The shield slips down the road, and the twins are shrieking with delight as they go sliding down the street. He can here Peggy taking photos, and he presses his face to Ian’s neck as he holds them safe for the ride. It’s a long hill and they go faster and faster. When it’s done, they make him go to the top to do it again. They sled down the hill countless times. They’re cold and wet and covered in snow, but they’re so happy.

Sarah took a few turns, and then decided she was much too mature for such things. She goes inside to make them hot drinks, and comes down to hand them out to them all. Bucky helps her carry the mugs, and Steve motions to the shield. “Want a go?” he asks. Bucky tilts his head in consideration, and then smiles wickedly.

He tackles Steve to the ground, and even without the shield they’re falling. Steve’s stomach flips unhappily. His eyes goes wide. There’s wind whipping through the air, and when he looks at Bucky, he takes in his friend’s clothes. Bucky’s wearing his uniform. He’s falling, falling faster and faster. Steve reaches out. “Bucky?” he asks. Bucky’s reaching towards him; he’s scared. This isn’t right. Something’s wrong. “Take my hand,” he shouts.

The hill’s not a hill. It’s a cliff. They’re on the edge. Bucky’s falling away. He reaches for Steve. Steve reaches for him. He screams for Bucky to get to him, but the ground falls loose beneath Bucky’s body, and his scream echoes loudly through Steve’s ears.

Steve jerks up in bed. He’s gasping for breath. Peggy’s in the doorway, dressed. She looks at him with worry on her face. “Are you okay?” she asks. He’s breathing too fast. He’s shaking violently. He throws himself out of bed and stumbles passed her. He runs down the hall to Bucky’s room. Bucky isn’t there. “Steve?”

“Bucky…Bucky, where-”

“At the church, with Catherine. I was just coming to wake you. Are you all right?”

“Church? Why the church?” Steve’s shivering.

“That’s where the wedding is…” Peggy says slowly. “You must have had quite the nightmare. Are you okay?”

“Wedding?” It clicks into place. Wedding, marriage, James and Catherine. It’s today. His panic evaporates. Everything’s fine. There’s no need to worry. Just a nightmare. Joy replaces fear. He needs to get ready. His son’s getting married.

It’s a snowy day in July, James and Catherine are twenty-four years old, and they’re beautiful. Steve’s in the church. He’s watching Bucky walk Catherine down the aisle. He’s watching him give her hand to James’, and he’s watching their families finally unite.

Peggy helped Catherine make her dress. It is so lovely on Catherine’s body. She looks like she was born to wear this dress. Her veil is delicate silk. Her gloves are dainty and sweet. James is in a dark suit with a winter rose on his chest. His dark blonde hair is slicked back and he’s a man. It seemed like moments ago he was waging war against Catherine with his little toy soldiers. Where had the time gone?

For all their planning, in the end Meghan and Ian are too old to play flower girl and ring bearer. Dugan’s got a few children now and they did their jobs for them. Meghan and Sarah serve as bridesmaids together, and Ian acts as James’ best man. Everything happens so fast. The Commandos cheer obnoxiously loud. The kids all seem so grown up. Even Philips, who hasn’t aged, seems a bit teary at it all. There’s ice forming on the walls and it just makes the day more unique. Steve breathes out, and he watches his breath make clouds in the air. 

“It’s kind of cold, isn’t it?” Steve asks. Bucky looks at him, and shrugs. 

“Could be worse,” he says simply. “We could still be at war.” Steve doesn’t know why that doesn’t make him feel better. He stands to the side of the ballroom during the reception, and he watches as Catherine and Bucky have their Father-Daughter dance. He watches James dance with Meghan on his feet. He watches Ian try to get one of the adults to let him drink scotch. He watches Gabe’s son flirt with Sarah, who’s wearing her baseball uniform.

Before Steve can question it, Peggy’s leading him out by his hands. They spin around like they’ve been doing for years, and Steve’s skin feels so terribly cold. He looks to the fireplace that every room has these days, and it’s roaring. The ice is coming in from the ceiling, and that doesn’t seem right. “Steve?” Peggy asks him, nervously. “Are you all right?”

He’s stopped dancing. He’s stopped dancing in the middle of James and Catherine’s wedding, and he doesn’t know what’s wrong, but something is. “Why’s Sarah dressed like that?” he asks. Peggy glances at her daughter, and when Steve turns his head, they’re at the baseball field.

Sarah’s in a Dodger’s uniform. She’s pitching with all her might, and she’s fast approaching a no-hitter. James and Catherine are sitting in front of them. Catherine’s got a baby on her knee and he’s fussing loudly. The baby’s wearing a knit blue hat with SSR wings on the ears, and he’s moving his arms back and forth unhappily. They can’t seem to make him calm down, and Steve can tell Catherine’s starting to lose her patience entirely.

“Is he all right?” Steve asks. Catherine looks up at him miserably.

“He’s been crying for days, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” She sounds like she’s going to start to cry. James is on the end of his rope too. Steve holds out his arms.

“Let me see if I can settle him,” he offers. She passes him over just as the crowd cheers loudly, and Steve holds his grandson to his chest. “It’s okay, Teddy, it’s okay.” The baby hugs his neck and cries miserably as the final pitch of the game is thrown. Strike out. The entire stadium erupts loudly. Everyone’s screaming. They’re on their feet. They’re clapping as loud as they can. Catherine and James shout louder then them all. Bucky his hollering and applauding. They’re chanting Sarah’s name. Her team runs out to lift her up on their shoulders.

The snow is melting.

Steve’s watching it as the snow starts to disappear. They’ve been playing baseball in the snow for so long, that seeing the fields turn grassy green is unbelievable. Steve hugs his grandson to his chest. Panic starts to rise. He looks around. They’re all together. James and Catherine, Ian and Meghan, Peggy and…and…where’s Sarah? They need to get to Sarah. They need to –

 _He’s alive!_ Words yell over the universe. There’s a sound of broken glass.

They’re at the beach. Steve’s setting up a big umbrella as James and Catherine lead Teddy-Graham into the water. He’s walking. He’s got two hands reaching up to hold his parents’, and he’s toddling along with big baby giggles. Sarah is playing catch with Ian, and Meghan’s drawing pictures in the sand. The sun’s beating down on them, and Steve looks around. He can’t see Bucky.

“Bucky didn’t want to come?” he asks. Usually Bucky’s always the first one there. He loves the beach. He loves to swim.

“I’m sure he’s on his way,” Peggy tells him. It’s so hot. Steve shields his eyes as he looks up to the sky. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…yeah it is…” he hesitates, and turns back to his family. “Peggy…this is real isn’t it?” He remembers asking her that so many years ago. Something’s not right; he knows that now. Something’s not right. His children are looking over to him, and he can feel his gut twisting inside him.

“The day? I should hope so, after all that winter, it’s lovely to finally get some sun. We should do this more often.” She leans into him, and he wraps his arms around her.

“We should go on a date,” he tells her. “Take a trip. The Stork Club.” He’s not sure why it had to be that, but it’s important.

“Like so many years ago,” she grins. “Are you asking an old woman to relive memories with you?”

“I’m asking my wife to go to her favorite place in all the world.” He kisses her neck.

“Well then, it’s a date.” She turns and leans her forehead against his, and then frowns. She pulls back.

“Are you all right? You’re warm,” she gasps. He knows that. He can feel it. He can feel how hot he’s getting. He feels like he’s going to be sick. He feels like…like…

“Dad?” James is rushing over. He’s on his back. They’re in their house. He’s shaking and he doesn’t know why. Catherine and Teddy-Graham are next to him, Ian and Meghan next to them, Sarah next to them, Peggy and Bucky by his head. They’re scared. “Dad, what’s wrong? Dad?” They’re scared, and Steve doesn’t know what’s going on, but he needs to protect them. He needs to keep them safe. The walls are on fire, eating away at the ice that had been there for so long. He shouts in horror and he pushes them all behind him. He’s got his shield, and he doesn’t know what to do. They’re surrounded by fire. It’s engulfing them. They’re choking on smoke, and they’re terrified. He knows this is the end. He knows they’re all going to die here.

They can’t get out. They can’t escape. It’s too hot. It’s far too hot. He turns to his family, sees them holding each other close. They’re so scared, and he can’t do a thing to help them.

“I love you,” he tells them. “I love you all so much.” The fire rages harder, and the world goes dark. He burns alive. He can feel his skin rippling with fire. He can feel his face drenched with sweat. He can feel himself dying in heat that cannot be overcome. It hurts so much, and he prays that his family is safe. He prays that they’re all right.

 

When he wakes up, Steve’s lying in a room and it sounds like New York City. There’s a baseball game on, playing from a lifetime ago.

Everything is wrong. This isn’t real.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the updated tags and warnings. This is very important as this story has now finished being written. 
> 
> Trigger warning: Please keep in mind that this chapter is VERY triggery as far as mentions of depression and suicide ideation goes. Steve is morbidly depressed in this chapter. He heavily contemplates killing himself. If this is something that will disturb you DO NOT READ this chapter or this story's finale.

Steve is sitting in a room. They tell him it’s 2010, and he’s been sleeping for over fifty years. He lets his eyes slide over the pictures on the wall, there are certificates and prizes everywhere. The man in front of him is a certified doctor, Dr. Lionel Mendel, meant to help those in need to handle their issues and find peace within themselves. Steve isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean. He knows that shrinks are not good people. He knows that their jobs are to imprison those who are unstable. He’s been there before, he’s seen it before, and he doesn’t know why he’s being asked to speak honestly.

“How are you adjusting to your time here?” he is asked. Steve picks at the cracking leather arms of the chair he’s sitting in. His clothes feel wrong on his body. They’re too tight. They’re smooth in strange places, and they’re itchy in others. His shoes are the most comfortable pieces of leather he’s ever worn, and he still isn’t sure what he’s supposed to shine them with. Apparently people don’t really do that sort of thing these days. “Is there anything we can do to help you adjust?”

Steve doesn’t know why they think he wants help. He doesn’t know why they keep pressuring him to talk. He has nothing he wants to talk about. Everything is wrong. He’s dreaming, and he needs to figure out how to wake up. His family needs him.

“Captain Rogers,” he hasn’t been called that in ages, but the doctor moves on anyway, “I understand that his is a difficult transition. But I’m here to help you in any way that I can. So please, is there anything that I can do?”

He doesn’t want to talk to this doctor any more than he wanted to talk to the last doctor. Fury’s made a lineup of professionals all meant to help him with his troubles. Steve doesn’t care for any of them. He looks outside. It’s sunny out. It’s warm. They said it's June, and he’d stared at the streets of Manhattan wondering why it isn't covered in snow.

He remembers everything. He knows they think they can convince him he’d been asleep for seventy years, but he knows they’re wrong. He knows everything about this is wrong. He wasn’t asleep. He was awake. He was awake, and he needs to figure out how to get home. He needs to find his family. They’re waiting for him, and when he last left them – they had been so scared.

“I’ve got some books I want you to read.” He’s handed a stack. Most were history books; some were informational books. Technology is so strange here. Howard’s flying cars apparently never took off, and his food processors aren’t even a thought in anyone’s head. He curls around the books. He’ll read them. If anything it’ll help him understand what’s going on.

Mendel lets him go. He walks from the office and back to his apartment. Fury gave it to him. He said that Steve doesn’t have to worry about anything. Steve knows he’s wrong. He has to worry. He left his family in a fire, and he needs to find them. If he’s here, then they must be too. He needs to find them. He needs to tell them that everything is going to be all right.

He lets himself into his apartment and he sets the books down on his bed. There’s a folder there too. He’d asked for the locations of his family and friends, and Fury promised to have it delivered. It sits on his bed with a note telling him that if he wants to talk, his therapist is available at any time. Steve doesn’t want to talk. He wants to find his family.

He sits at a small table and he opens the file. The first words he reads hit him like a blow beneath his ribs. James Morita: Deceased. The stamp is bright red and boxed off. It spreads across the page like a brand. He drops the page to the table and lifts one shaking hand to his mouth. That’s not right. That’s _not_ right. He picks it up with trembling fingers and he reads the paper carefully.

James Morita returned from the war after Steve crashed the plane in the arctic. He never went on to fight in Okinawa. He went back to Fresno and he lived a comfortable life with his wife, Hitomi. He died of lung cancer ten years ago. Steve knows none of that is true. He just saw Jim. He _just_ saw him. He was alive. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t.

Steve goes to the next Commando. Falsworth returned to England where he was happily married with a brood of children. He wrote several books about the war, and eventually died of a heart attack in his sleep two years previously. Dugan became Howard Stark’s bodyguard. Both died in a car accident thirty years ago, along with Howard’s wife. Howard had continued on to build his weapons dynasty and his son, Tony, continued that legacy. Dernier caught an STD in France and died six years after the war ended.

Steve came to a page that stated that James Barnes was a dedicated war hero who was the only Commando to lose his life during battle. Everything that page said was wrong. Steve knows that’s not true. They went back for him. They went back, found him, and then Bucky was at his side his whole life. If Bucky was dead, then Catherine wasn’t alive…and Teddy – Teddy wouldn’t have been born.

Then there’s Gabe…Gabe who Fury says went on to marry Peggy Carter. They had two children together. Gabe died protecting a group of protestors during a civil rights rally. He defended them bravely, and was eventually struck and beaten by an opposing force. He was a martyr for his cause and dubbed a hero twice over.   Steve stared at the picture of Peggy with Gabe. Their children sat beside them. Steve was fairly certain he was going to be sick. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t- _Peggy was his wife!_

He pushes the papers away and braced his elbows on the table. He lets his head fall into his hands and he breathes in raggedly. It isn’t right. It isn’t right. Gabe was married, but he _wasn’t_ married to Peggy. Gabe had kids of his own, and his son liked to flirt with Sarah, and sometimes they talked about Sarah finally letting him into her life. Sometimes they teased that it was just like James and Catherine – another Howling Commando marrying into the family. It was a joke; it was a laugh. Sarah couldn’t exist if Gabe and Peggy had been married. Gabe’s son couldn’t flirt with Sarah if that was the case…

Peggy is the only one alive, but _apparently_ …apparently she had dementia. She doesn’t know who _she_ was half the time. How would she possibly be able to tell him what was going on? There are pictures of her. She is old and grey. She’s aged so much, and she doesn’t look like the young vibrant woman who he had last seen crouching in their burning home. She doesn’t look like the woman he’d fallen for, married, and had a life with.

There are no files at all about James, Sarah, Ian, or Meghan. Catherine, in their opinion, could never have existed and so there were no files on her or Steve’s grandson. There is no information. All there is, is an empty hole and a void that isn’t being filled. He is angry. He is furious. He needs to get back home. Everyone keeps lying to him, and he’s tired of it.

He gathers his papers and he marches from the apartment. He doesn’t stop for anything. He takes a cab directly to Fury’s office and he breezes passed the men and women working at their desks. Fury is on the phone when he came in. He holds up a hand, and Steve vibrates hatefully as his fingers tightened around the packets. When Fury ends his call, he folds his hands over his desk.

“What can I do for you, Cap?” he asks. Steve throws the papers on this de.

“They’re wrong,” he says tightly. “They’re all wrong.”

“What do you mean, they’re wrong?” He stands up from his desk. Steve watches him reach towards the papers, and watches as he looks through the documents.

“It didn’t happen like that.”

“How did it happen?” Fury asks him.

“Where are my kids?” There’s honest surprise on Fury’s face. His one eye widens, and he looks at the papers on the desk before looking back up at Steve.

“Your kids?” he clarifies, and Steve watches him try to find some scrap of information he can offer him. There’s nothing. Fury’s drawing a blank, and it just makes Steve’s anger rise.

“James, Sarah, Ian, and Meghan, James’ wife Catherine, and their son Theodore. Where are they?” There’s more confusion, this time there’s even a touch of panic on Fury’s face.

“Captain…you were twenty-seven when you crashed that plane.” His voice is slow and measured. He sounds like he’s trying to get Steve to come to some realization on his own, but the only thing that Steve knows is that he’s lying. He’s lying to him, and he’s not going to accept that.

“That has _nothing_ to do with anything.”

“You can’t possibly have had a child, a grand-child even. You were too _young_.”

“I didn’t have James when I was twenty-seven!” Steve slams his hand on the desk. “Where’s my son? Where are my kids?”

“Steve, you didn’t have any children.”

“Yes, I did!”  He can feel his heart starting to pound faster in his chest. His lungs don’t feel like they’re filling up with air properly. He clenches his hands into fists at his side. He can see his children huddled on a burning floor. He can see their terrified faces looking up at him, asking for him to help them. He needs to know where they are. If he survived, they could have too.

“Tell me about them,” Fury requests. He motions for Steve to sit, but he doesn’t want to sit. He starts to pace. He needs to move. It’s the only thing that’s helping him. He has to move. He has to do something. Sitting around is doing nothing at all to help quell the anxiety that’s building within him.

“James is twenty-six. He married Catherine when they were twenty-four. They have a son, Theodore Graham. They call him Teddy.” Fury’s taking notes. He’s writing fast against the paper, and when Steve stops talking, Fury tells him it’s to help them find his kids. The more information they have, the easier it will be to find them. Steve nods his head and keeps talking. He talks about how Sarah’s a baseball player and she’s a star pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fury’s lips tighten as he speaks, but it doesn’t stop Steve from telling him everything he can think of. Ian and Meghan are teenagers. They both like art and music. They’re lighthearted and happy. They’re wonderful. “Bucky…Bucky’s not in there either,” Steve points to the folders.

Fury looks even worse than when Steve first walked in. He’s clenching his jaw and his eyes are glaring down at the copious notes that he took. “Sergeant Barnes?” Fury confirms.

“Peggy went back for him. Then they found me after the plane crashed. That’s why it doesn’t matter…don’t you see? They found me already.” Steve’s hands are shaking. He’s repeating the information he’s known for years, and still Fury looks at him like its all wrong.

“Wait here,” Fury tells him. He scoops up the paperwork and he goes to the door.

“Where are you going?” Steve asks.

“I’m going to give this to my team, get a search going.” Steve nods. He starts pacing faster. His kids are going to be scared. Teddy, Teddy’s going to be so scared. He didn’t like change. He didn’t like abrupt alterations to his life. He hated loud noises and big events. Steve needed to find Teddy. What if Catherine and James couldn’t soothe him? Teddy liked Steve. He’d settle if Steve was there.

The sun crests over the arc of the world. It starts to set, and he sits down on one of Fury’s sofas. His office has four of them set around a small glass table. Everything is glass here. The technology is so different than what he’s used to. It doesn’t make sense. He presses his head to his hands. This is wrong, and he needs it to stop. He needs it to stop.

The door opens at long last, and he looks up. It’s his therapist. Doctor Mendel. Steve clenches his jaw. Fury slips in behind the man and Mendel offers him a kind smile before sitting across from him.

“Did you find anything?” Steve asks. He knows they didn’t. Doctor Mendel is holding a new batch of paperwork. He carefully sets the documents on the table between them.

“Steve…I understand that you’re concerned about the location of several individuals?”

“My children and grandson.” They keep shying away from calling them exactly that, but Steve won’t let them. He won’t let them brush off their significance. Fury’s face twists like he’d been sucking on a lemon. Steve clenches his fingers tight. He can feel blood on his palms. They’re going to lie again.

“Steve…these are the reports of the excavation where you were found.” The lights dim suddenly, and Steve jumps as Mendel motions towards a big flat screen that shifts with colors and sounds. He watches as an image of ice and snow is shown to him. He is shown images of scientists walking through tundra. He sees the wings of the Valkyrie. He sees the interior of the plane. He sees his shield frozen in the snow. He sees his body lying prone – still in his military uniform.

A man shouts out in a voice that he remembers from a half forgotten dream. _He’s alive!_ His gut twists within him and he crosses his arms over his chest. He tucks his bleeding palms, still clenched in fists, under his pits. He continues to watch. He watches as he’s thawed. He watches as tests are done on his clothes. _Frozen for seventy years_. The scientists say. _Never been disturbed._ He knows he’s shaking.

“That’s wrong,” he whispers. “I was found less than two days after I crashed the plane.”

“Steve…” Mendel tries.

“That’s _wrong_. I went back to war. Hitler surrendered-”

“Hitler killed himself in a bunker rather than face life as a war criminal,” Fury cut in. Mendel snaps at him to be more gentle. “No, he needs to hear this.”

“You’re _wrong_. I fought in Okinawa – the war was won. There wasn’t another war again. I married Peggy Carter. I had kids, a _life_. This – this is _wrong_.”

“Steve, we believe that while you were frozen you were still capable of dreaming. We ran preliminary tests when we realized your brain activity was still present. That’s when we first discovered you were alive.” He motions back to the screen where they’re attaching monitors to his skull. Steve shakes his head. He shakes his head again. Again. Again.

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong. I was awake. I was found. I married Peggy Carter. Bucky’s alive. Our children got married – I have a grandson. You’re _wrong_.”

“Dreams can be very active, and we don’t understand all aspects of the serum-” Steve slams his palm down on the glass table. It exploded. Shards go in all direction. Paper flies. Mendel jumps badly and Steve doesn’t care. He’s on his feet.

“This isn’t about the serum! I wasn’t frozen for seventy years, that’s impossible!”

“Physically your cells regenerate at an alarming rate. It was quite surprising for us as well,” Mendel tries. He’s trying so hard, but Steve isn’t going to believe him.

“Stop lying to me.”

“We’re not lying.” Fury reaches through the glass and he picks up the new papers that they’d brought in. He holds them out for Steve to talk. “Sergeant Barnes’ body was never found. He was killed in battle in March 1945. He never went home. He never had a daughter. You were never found. Not until just a few weeks ago. I’m sorry, Steve. But that life you’re describing…it isn’t real.”

Steve’s legs go out from under him. Mendel hisses in surprise, but he doesn’t care. He can feel his legs being torn up by the glass, but it will heal. It always heals. He’s staring at Fury, and he knows he’s supposed to do something. He knows he’s supposed to fight. All he can do is struggle to come to terms with what they’re saying. “You’re wrong,” he says again. “They’re my family.”

“I’m sorry,” Fury says. “They don’t exist, they're not real.” Then, Steve asks the question he knows they’ve been fearing he’d ask. He can’t help it. It slips from his mouth unbidden and awful. He shivers violently as he says the words.

“Then how do I know this is real?” he asks them. Fury and Mendel share a look.

He’s on lock down after that.

He doesn’t really expect anything else.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Dr. Mendel talks to Steve every day. They sit together in Steve’s apartment, which he’s not allowed to leave without supervision, and they talk about history. Steve doesn’t feel like talking. In fact, he spends the majority of his sessions with his arms crossed and his gaze directed towards the floor.

He has a sketchbook, someone let him have it, and he spent hours drawing in the faces of his children. He drew their house. He drew Peggy. He drew Bucky. He drew the Commandos and their families. He drew Dernier’s restaurant and memories of things he know happened. Catherine and James’ confirmation, their wedding, their reception. Sarah’s Dodgers’ uniform. Ian and Meghan making snow people. He draws everything. They’re real, and he knows they’re real, and he won’t let anyone tell him otherwise.

Mendel asks to see it once, and Steve quietly shows it to them. He explains each picture with a hint of a dare in his voice. These events happened, and he won’t accept that they’re imaginary. He gives Mendel all the information he can. He describes the smell of the air, the feel of their skin, the color of their clothes. He doesn’t stop talking until Mendel quietly sets the book to the side.

“I’d like to ask you about your family.” Mendel waits for Steve to snatch the drawings back to his side before continuing. “James was your firstborn?”

“Yes. He was born on October 13, 1947.”

“When did he start to walk?” Steve opens his mouth to reply, but finds the words frozen in the back of his throat. He knows this. He knows he knows this. He was there. He was certain of it. He would have been there when James took his first steps. Or Peggy would have told him, Bucky too. Someone would have told him. They would have had a party, or they would have made a big deal out of it some other way.

Steve’s tongue flicks out and licks over his bottom. He knows James started walking, and Bucky never let him go after that. They were constantly together. He tried to think when that was exactly. “He was…eleven months.” That seemed about right. Eleven months.

“What were his first words?” Again, Steve goes to respond, and very clearly has an image of James complaining about Sarah. Sarah was already toddling by then. He struggles. Horror grips him. He’s forgetting. That’s the only answer possible. He’s somehow forgetting his son’s milestones.

He closes his eyes and forces himself to recall every moment of James’ life. He can see it all. He can see the ebb and flow of time. There were tiny days he missed, but he is certain that they weren’t important ones. He couldn’t be expected to remember every minute of James’ life. That was impossible. He didn’t even remember every minute of his own life, how could he be expected to remember that?

“Was he ever sick?” Mendel presses.

“No,” Steve said. None of his children were. “Serum kept them healthy.” He excuses easily enough. They are half his blood, therefore the serum made sure they were safe and healthy.

“What about Catherine? She didn’t have the serum.” Steve can feel the thread of anxiety growing more insistent and his stomach twisted uncomfortably. He shakes his head and Mendel raises his brows in a way that he knows is meant to be judging.

“She was healthy.” Anxiety is quickly replaced by anger. “Just because she wasn’t sick doesn’t mean that she didn’t exist!” Mendel nods at him, but Steve knows he’s just doing it to appease Steve as he moves on to his next line of questioning.

“What did you do for work?” Steve stands up abruptly.

“I’m done talking to you. Leave.”

“Steve…”

“Get out of my house-apartment- _just get out!_ ” Mendel leaves. He walks out of the room and Steve can hear the sound of the a lock clicking and he knows that he’s staying here alone again. He opens his sketchbook and he quickly marks down another moment of James’ life.

“You’re real,” he tells the facsimile. “You’re my son, and I’m going to find you.” He knows that Fury is probably listening to everything he says. He knows that he’s being watched. He doesn’t care. He’s going to find them. He won’t let anything happen to them. He won’t.

Fury gives Steve access to every history book and data file he can. He insists that Steve should familiarize himself with the information provided. He reads them. He needs to know what he’s up against, and so he reads them. He memorizes the files, the facts, the figures. Most of what he reads turns his gut.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement…there were so many countless deaths and horrors that happened since his time, Steve wasn’t sure where to begin. His friends had all been a part of it. His friends had built the weapons, fought in the wars, struggled through the pain of it all. Except, they hadn’t, he reminds himself constantly. It’s not real. He clings to his sketchbook and clings to his past, and he tells himself that they got it wrong. Fury got it wrong. None of this was real.

“If this isn’t real, then where are you now? What is this place?” Mendel motions around them, and Steve looks out the window to the city below. He clenches his jaw and he doesn’t know how to answer.

“I was in a fire. Before I woke up.” Steve remembers how hot it was.

“That was likely your subconscious telling you your body was no longer on ice. You said there was a winter, an endless winter.” Steve nods. “You _were_ frozen, Steve.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“You saw the video.”

“It’s wrong. It’s not real. Maybe this is the dream?”

“Tell me, Steve, would you ever dream that Bucky Barnes was dead?” The question catches him in unawares. It blindsides him. He’s thinking about the fire and the beach, and he never once was thinking that he’d hear Mendel say those words. His breath catches in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Bucky’s behind his lids. He’s holding his hand up. He’s not saying anything, he’s trying to hard to reach Steve, and Steve is reaching back. He tells Bucky he’ll catch him, so long as he reaches out. Bucky tries. He tries, and Steve lets him fall. The bar breaks, he doesn’t catch Bucky, and he watches Bucky fall into the snow. Bucky’s voice echoes in a scream that never ends. It’s just as sharp as the first day he heard it. Bucky’s falling to his death, but it’s _not_ his death. Peggy found him. He was alive. He made it through.

“He didn’t die,” Steve chokes out. He can feel tears starting to form behind his eyes. “We found him. He’s alive. He’s alive.”

“Steve,” Mendel reaches out and touches his knee. “Would you ever dream that Bucky Barnes was dead?”

Even in Steve’s worst nightmares, he never considered Bucky’s death. Never. Not once. They were always together; best friends since childhood. They’d never been apart prior to the war. He’d risked everything just to find him during the war. They fought at each other’s sides. Bucky couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Mendel tells him. “But Sergeant Barnes died over half a century ago.” Steve shakes his head. He presses his hands to his temples. He’s crying. He’s doubtful. He’s desperate for another explanation. “You watched him die, and days later you crashed a plane into the arctic. You stayed there, asleep, for seventy years.”

“I saw him…I saw him…he can’t be…”

“It wasn’t real, Captain. It was a dream. Bucky Barnes died in 1945.”

“No…no, that’s not what…”

“Think,” Mendel squeezes his knee. “Bucky died in 1945. You saw it happen. You were asleep only days later, and you dreamed the one thing you wanted more than anything else. There has to be something, something that was strange…something that didn’t seem right. There was an endless winter. What else? Think.”

And damn him. Steve thinks. He thinks about how there _are_ gaps. There are gaps between events that he just can’t remember. He doesn’t remember Teddy being born. He doesn’t remember hearing his name. He just knew it. He knew Teddy’s name. He knew how to hold him. He knew how to soothe him. He doesn’t remember first meeting him. He just knows that he knew him.

He doesn’t remember the rest of James and Catherine’s wedding. He doesn’t remember Sarah signing with the Dodgers. He doesn’t remember Sarah’s confirmation. He doesn’t remember Ian and Meghan’s first communion. He doesn’t remember Philips aging. He doesn’t remember mundane tasks like shopping or paperwork. He doesn’t remember anything but the good moments. His mind slides through each experience, and he cannot recall one solitary moment where he was ever doing something that wasn’t wonderful or exciting.

He remembers playing with his children in the snow, and worse: he remembers how the road turns into a hill and how Bucky fell off a cliff that wasn’t there. He thought it was a dream, then, but maybe that was the horror of it all. Maybe the truth was much worse. He remembers thinking it was strange how the ice was always there, he was always cold, but he was never affected by it. It was never something that impacted him.  

“It wasn’t real?” Steve asks. Mendel’s grip on his knee tightens.

“No, Steve. It wasn’t real.”

Steve remembers the sound of glass breaking in his mind. He remembers intense heat. He remembers the fear on his family’s face. It seemed so real, and yet he knew it was too fast, too quick. Things were wrong. Things had been so wrong, and he’d known it then, and he knows it now. Tears press from his eyes and he gasps on air.

Grief overtakes him. He isn’t sure what’s worse: knowing his wife and children are dead, or knowing they never existed to begin with.  Steve cries until he can’t cry anymore. Mendel sits with him the whole time. He tells him to let it out, and he does. He lets it out. His reality has shattered. He let Bucky fall to his death, and everything that came afterwards wasn’t real. He failed. He failed, and Steve isn’t sure he can ever make it better.

Mendel leaves eventually. Steve lies on his bed and he clutches his sketchbook to his chest. Everything on those pages is a construct of his mind. His children never existed. He’d made them up. He’d made them up, and there was no reason to be upset over it. Mendel had even said so.

“Grieve for Bucky Barnes, for the relationship you never had, but you can’t mourn the loss of people who never existed.” Steve knows he’s right. He knows that there’s no reason whatsoever he should be upset that he hadn’t lived a life with a house full of kids.

He opens his sketchbook. He looks at Meghan and Ian. He doesn’t remember when they were born. He just remembers introducing them to James, Sarah, and Catherine. He remembers the argument over who was going to win the sibling feud. He remembers them eternally young. His babies. His youngest.

The pain feels real. The pain feels sharp and agonizing against his chest. Steve feels like a dagger has snapped up through his ribs, lodging itself in his heart. Bucky’s scream echoes through his ears and he turns to the page of Bucky dancing with Catherine at her wedding. None of it happened. None of it was real.

The book falls from his hands and he stares at the wall of his room. He sits there for hours. He doesn’t know how long. It feels like days pass. The sun rises and sets, and it doesn’t matter if he moves. He didn’t move for seventy years. There’s no reason for him to move now.

“You should go for a walk, reacclimatize yourself to the city,” Mendel suggests. He sits in Steve’s room, and Steve is aware there’s stubble growing on his face. He doesn’t feel like leaving. He doesn’t feel like doing anything but sitting still and letting the earth swallow him whole.

He does what Mendel asks. He walks on paths Mendel says are calming. He gets a new sketchbook. He kicks his old one under the bed. He dreamed he kept photos there once, and it seems as good a place as any. He never wants to see those pictures again. He wishes he could forget. But each day he wakes thinking about children he never had, and he knows he’s praying for proof that he was right to begin with.

He walks around the city and is assailed by memories of phantoms. He sees Sarah pitching in the park. He sees James and Catherine laughing in a diner. He sees Meghan drawing with sidewalk chalk. He sees Ian trying to playact as an adult. He hears Bucky screaming in his ears, and Peggy laughing against his back.

He sketches endlessly. He draws landscapes because he doesn’t trust the people he sees. He doesn’t trust himself to not add features, not morph their faces into the memorized images of family members that don’t exist. He sketches buildings and towers. He sketches New York. He’s never felt emptier, or more alone.

He goes to a gym at night and he attacks a bag with as much anger and despair as he can manage. He destroys the equipment and the staff promises that they’ll just get more. SHIELD is compensating them. Steve can’t bring himself to enjoy anything. He can’t find any measure of peace. He’s not sure he deserves it in any case.

Mendel apparently told Fury that he’s doing better. In fact, Fury even comes to him and asks him if he can go on a mission to save the world. There’s nothing waiting for him now, so Steve goes along with it. There’s no point in arguing. There’s no point in doing anything at all.

He feels like he’s melting. He feels like his skin is falling off his bones, his muscles are unraveling, his organs are dissipating. He feels like he’s adrift, losing himself to a tide that’s wrapping him up and holding him firm. Steve doesn’t like this new world with its new technology and its poor behavior.

He doesn’t like how sexualized everything has become. He doesn’t like how racist they all still are. He doesn’t like how angry everyone seems. There’s gluttony and pride that mix with envy and wrath. There are so many faults in this world and Steve knows more than ever: his life had been a dream. People don’t change. They don’t get better. They don’t do anything productive. They are wicked and vile, and they don’t deserve to be saved.

He saves them anyway. He goes back to war. It’s all he’s good at. It’s all he knows. He fights for SHIELD and he accepts that Peggy built this organization in his honor. It’s what she would have wanted, he supposes. He didn’t really know his wife all that well after all. How could he have? They were never married.

Steve’s ring finger feels empty, but he doesn’t replace his wedding band. It feels wrong to even contemplate honoring a marriage that never took place. His feet drag forwards. He does what’s asked of him. He’s so tired.

Mendel reminds him that he needs to hold on to the memory of Bucky’s death. It’s the only event that is keeping him tethered to this reality. Bucky fell to his death, and he couldn’t possibly have survived. He couldn’t have made it through unscathed. It was impossible.

“Zola was experimenting on him in Azzano, maybe he did something…” Steve tries only once. Mendel gives him a look that’s clearly disappointed, and Steve swallows that feeling. He swallows it and he pulls his arms close to his chest. Bucky’s dead. Zola didn’t do anything to him. He fell to his death. No one found him in the Arctic. He dreamed everything.

This place is real.

This place, with its aliens and gods, is real. Even in his sleep, he never conjured aliens. He never looked for gods. His reality had been plain and boring by comparison. It had been uneventful. Just another thing that’s different.

He teaches himself to breathe. He thinks about it every day. _Breathe in, breathe out, Bucky’s dead, I’m alone._ He saves the world with the Avengers, and he thinks about the future. He thinks about what he’s supposed to do with his life.

“You could find another woman,” Mendel suggests. The thought is abhorrent. He shies away from the mere idea. He can’t fathom it. He knows it’s wrong, but he can’t help it. “Don’t be haunted by events that never happened,” Mendel tells him. It’s not enough to make his mind fully believe that. It’s not enough to make him feel peace.

He leaves New York. He has to. His family once ran about these streets, and they never left the boroughs. He has to leave New York, because he needs to form new memories elsewhere. SHIELD has an office in DC. He goes there without complaint. He’s given a new apartment, with new babysitters, and new books that he should read.

He’s given a new fighting instructor who teaches him different hand-to-hand techniques. He learns and practices because he has nothing else to do. He’s too tired to go on, but he’s not able to sleep. Each night he stares at his bed and he wonders if he will see his family’s faces when he closes his eyes.

He doesn’t. His mind knows the trick now. It knows that he made it all up. Like any other dream, he can’t fall back into it. It’s taken from him, and it’s not coming back. He doesn’t see James and Catherine. He doesn’t see Ian and Meghan. He doesn’t see Sarah and Peggy. He sees Bucky. He sees Bucky reaching for him on the train, and he sees Bucky falling to his death. He can’t reach him. He can’t save him. Bucky’s dying and he can’t do anything to help.

He hates sleeping. He’s slept long enough. Fury asks him about it sometimes, but Steve doesn’t have much of a response. There’s nothing he can say that makes him feel better, and there’s no right answer. Everyone takes what they want from whatever he says. He’s so tired of it all.

Mendel comes with Steve to Washington. They meet frequently, though not as much as before. Steve is grateful for the slight separation. He knows Mendel is trying to help. He knows that the man has his best interests at heart, but Steve also knows that he’s not making enough progress for Mendel to be happy. He’s tired of failing, and he can’t help it. He aches, constantly. 

Steve walks around the National Mall. He looks at monuments and sculptures, he visits memorials to the past. He finds himself staring at the names at the Vietnam memorial. His face stares back at him, and he presses his name to the mirrored stone. He squeezes his eyes shut and his head bends. He’s alone, he reminds himself. He’s alone, and no one is there but his reflection. The world’s spun on without him, and he’s an anachronism that’s trapped in the present. 

A journalist takes his picture at the memorial, and it ends up splashed across dozens of papers and all over the internet. It’s compared to a famous art piece. He looks at the photo and the painting side by side, and he closes the laptop Fury gave him. Tony Stark sends him a text telling him that he was at the wrong memorial. Steve’s sure it was meant to be a joke, but it falls flat.

Howard never had a child in his dream. During the war Howard had made it abundantly clear that the thought children were a waste of his time. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with them. Steve brought his kids to visit Howard more than once, and Howard always indulged them, but that was the beauty of it. Howard always said that he liked to give kids home at the end of the day, he never wanted them for himself. 

He can see the repercussions of Howard’s beliefs in Tony Stark. Tony never felt an ounce of love from his father, and he wants it even now. Steve can see the lines of neglect and self-loathing hidden behind a veil of arrogance. Tony’s got the self-worth of a marble statue. The world looks at him and tells him he’s wonderful, but there’s not a thought in his head that’s capable of belief. Steve knows all of this, and yet he can’t find it within himself to help. Seeing Tony hurts. Tony looks like his father, and even though Steve knows that there’s a disconnect there…he can’t help it. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. 

Steve imagines that Tony and James would have been friends. If Steve had dreamed up Tony, he could have seen Tony escaping Howard’s focus and spending time with James and Catherine. Maybe they’d fight over her. Maybe they’d go on so many misadventures together. Steve could see James and Tony in back alleys getting into all kinds of trouble. He can see Bucky rolling his eyes at the whole thing and chastising them both. They’d have enjoyed spending time together, and Steve wouldn’t have let Tony be alone. He would have welcomed him into his house and let him stay as long as he needed. He wouldn’t have let him grow up feeling like he didn’t have a family.

Sometimes, when Steve hears Tony speak, all he wants to do is put an arm around his shoulder and tell him it’ll be okay. But he’s not a father, and he never was. His concept of parenting was formed from a dream. Tony doesn’t want, or need, Steve acting like his parent. He isn’t friends with James, and he never would have been. James didn’t exist. Steve reminds himself he needs to just let go. 

Steve polishes his shield obsessively. When he first got it back, he had been assailed by memories of sledding down the streets of Brooklyn. He remembered the feel of Ian’s hair against his skin. He remembered how Meghan clung to his side. Mendel gave him books on dream interpretation, and he knows that hiding the shield under his bed meant that he was trying to put the war behind him. He knows the sledding meant that he was trying to draw something innocent from something violent. He knows all of this. It doesn’t seem to help. The shield is a weapon and its his alone. He polishes it to keep it in the best condition it can be, and he tells himself that it’s merely a coincidence that the shiny surface can sled so much easier now that its been tended to. 

Natasha joins him sometimes. She cleans her guns, and Steve finds himself grateful for the fact that she has nothing to do with his past. She’s new, and unique, and he couldn’t have imagined her. It’s another part of the acceptance process that he forces himself to go through. He never met anyone knew in his dreams. He never met anyone else. Aside from his children, every face he saw was exactly the same as it always has been. They never changed. They never altered. Now, he’s surrounded by unknowns. Natasha is new. She’s always different. She’s not the same. He can accept that. 

They don’t talk all the time. In fact, they spend more time not talking to each other than they do speaking. Steve polishes his shield so that it glimmers in the light, and Natasha makes sure her guns are in tiptop shape. Steve looks at the back of his shield at the names that were hastily drawn onto it so many years ago. The Commandos had all signed their names by the strap his arm went through. Steve traces their names under Natasha’s watchful eye, and he wonders if part of letting go is erasing them from existence. 

He asks her opinion once. He holds the shield up to show her their names. She looks at them and she considers them individually. “They’re a part of your past, Rogers. You shouldn’t forget them.” 

“What about other names?” he doesn’t know why he’s asking. He knows she’s going to tell Fury. Everyone reports back to Fury. That’s the name of this game, and it’s one that he’s not sure he’ll ever master. 

“Which names?” Natasha asks. 

“New friends…new family members…” He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t meet her eyes. He keeps his gaze locked on the rounded curve of his shield and he wonders what their names would look like. He wonders what having Ian and Meghan’s names on his shield would do for him. He doesn’t think he’ll write James and Sarah’s, just the twins. 

“Why did you have them sign it in the first place?” Natasha asks. She hands him back the shield and he lets his thumbs rub against its edges. 

“A symbol of what I was protecting. A symbol of what I brought into battle with me.” 

“Are you still protecting those people?” Pain lances through Steve’s body and he wordlessly shakes his head. He knows he’s failed. He risks a glance at Natasha’s face, and she looks surprisingly confused. It’s not an expression he expects on her, and it’s not one he longs to see again.

“Not anymore,” he tells her. He cleans up his station and he packs away his shield. He walks home in silence, and he doesn’t write his ghosts’ names on his shield. 

The Smithsonian contacts Steve and asks him if he’s amenable to a Captain America exhibit being put on in his honor. He tells them it doesn’t matter to him, and he signs waivers that let them go through his life and put on a show. He receives letters and notices throughout the process, and he listens to them attempt to include him in the design. He smiles when he’s supposed to, says something patriotic when it’s expected, and has no more involvement than he can manage. 

After the first few weeks of gathering information, the curators generally leave him alone. The historians last on for another couple of months, but eventually he’s given peace and quiet. He spends his time staring out at the world, avoiding sleep, and trying desperately not to grieve for people he’s not supposed to. He’s told that he’s so lucky to have been found. He’s told that it’s a miracle that he’s here. He responds the way they expect, and he pretends that he’s doing better. 

Once, in a moment of sheer idiocy, he goes online and finds a chatroom where parents discuss the grief of losing a child. He reads their posts, reads their comments and their pain. He thinks about writing something. He thinks about adding a post to their forum and saying the words out loud. “I am a father, and a grandfather, and I lost them all.” He mentions it to Mendel. He half hopes Mendel will tell him that it’s all right. That it might help. 

“Don’t you think it’s a little wrong to pretend you have any idea what they’re feeling? They actually had children. You didn’t. They actually lost their families. You didn’t. Steve,” he adds gently, “you can grieve the fact you never had a chance, but you can’t tell people you were ever a parent. You weren’t, and lying to them just dishonors the pain and torment they’re going through.” He’s right. Steve knows he’s right. He nods his head, and when he goes home, he deletes the bookmark off the browser he’d saved it on. He pushes his laptop aside and waits for something to change. 

Every morning he looks to the sun and he repeats Mendel’s mantra.  _This world is real. This isn’t a dream. If this was a dream, Bucky would be alive. He’s not. I’m alone. I’m not a father. Bucky’s dead. I’m alone._ Every afternoon, he sits in his kitchen and he wonders if he should bother to make something to eat. Eventually he does, but it’s a process. It’s an effort. His food is tasteless and bland. He doesn’t feel like trying to make it better. 

Clint and Natasha come by every so often. They all enjoy working for SHIELD together, and Steve puts on a brave face. He listens to their stories, and lets them distract him. He thinks that it’s probably for the best. He’s certain that if he tries to talk, he’ll say something wrong. He goes through the emotions, and he thinks that it might be good enough to fool them. 

“Are you all right?” Clint asks him anyway. 

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“You just seem…depressed.” Clint shifts awkwardly where he stands. Steve doesn’t know what to say. People like him don’t have any right to be depressed. He’s got a job, he’s got money, he’s got people who constantly are making sure that he’s eating and moving properly, he’s got everything a man could want or need. There are people out there with real problems, with real pain. 

“I’m not depressed,” he tells Clint. Clint doesn’t look like be believes him. In fact, he steps forwards and hugs Steve just like Bucky used to. He puts his arms around Steve’s neck, gives him a tight squeeze, and then releases him before it becomes inappropriate. 

“We’re here for you if you need us,” he tells Steve slowly.

“Sure, and the same for you.” Clint nods and walks away. Steve stands in his house, alone, and thinks about opening his sketchbook. He thinks about looking at the faces of dreams, and he knows that it’s wrong. 

He starts to run. 

He runs every day. He needs to leave the apartment and the neighbors. He needs to stop feeling like he’s trapped. He doesn’t know if he’s running to something, or running away from something. He doesn’t know if there is a destination in mind, or if he’s just exhausting himself. He tells SHIELD he’s keeping in shape. It’s his own lie that he’s happy to give. 

He meets Sam Wilson. 

He tells Mendel.

“I was thinking about going down to the VA,” Steve says. There are pamphlets on the side wall of Mendel’s new office. They’re all about grief and moving on. Some have children on the covers. Mendel told him that he has many clients, and that these ones aren’t his to look at. 

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Mendel encourages. “You’re a soldier, perhaps interacting with other soldiers will assist you. I can look into when world war two veterans meet.” He’s already doing so on his computer. Steve watches him dully. 

“Does it have to be world war two?” he asks. Mendel gives him a patient look. 

“The war you fought in was very different from the wars our current veterans have fought in. There’s not much similarity there. It will be better if you can be around those who can understand you.”

“With all do respect, sir…war is war. You kill, or you die. I’m not sure it matters that I was fighting against HYDRA or Al Queada.” Mendel seems slightly taken aback, and Steve relishes in the feeling of empowerment that gives him. 

“I can find my own VA meeting,” Steve continues. 

“Try this one first,” Mendel prints out a page and hands it to him. He takes it. He looks at the date and time, and he feels the energy to fight drift away. He nods his head, and Mendel pats his knee. “You’ll feel better for it,” he’s assured. Steve isn’t so sure. 

He attends the world war two meeting. There are four people in attendance, and they’re all old men. They look towards him like they’re not sure what to say to him, and they don’t seem interested in talking to each other either. Steve feels his throat close up, and he can hear Bucky’s voice screaming through his ears. It’s a mistake to come here. He leaves. 

He walks home. There’s a baseball game playing in the park. Kids are rushing about and screaming happily. He watches a girl ask her mom if she can play too, but her mom says girls don’t play baseball, they play softball, and won’t let her join in. Steve walks passed the game, ignores the sound of children laughing, and remembers something Bucky said to him long ago. 

There as a great thick cloud of darkness settled in behind his chest, choking and killing him with each breath he took. Steve has to strain to remember that it wasn’t real, that Bucky hadn’t actually said that.  He had, he supposes. It was his subconscious. His dark cloud. He enters his apartment and he looks around. He’s tired, he knows. He’s tired, and he’s fragile, and he doesn’t belong. 

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he realizes that it’s true. He doesn’t belong here, and he never will. Tony Stark didn’t need him. SHIELD was just fine without him. The world could continue spinning, and Mendel could focus on his other patients who were far more deserving then him. His eyes fell to the table in front of him. He’d collected his mail there, and there was a brochure for the Smithsonian exhibit. 

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets it go. He needs to do a few things first. He needs to see Peggy, and he supposes he should say goodbye to Sam Wilson. Sam was kind enough to invite him to the VA meeting, even though he didn’t belong there. The others…SHIELD can tell them. SHIELD can fill in the gaps and he won’t have to worry about it any longer. They don’t care, and they would be better off. 

He spends the night cleaning his apartment. He listens to records that SHIELD gave him, and he tidies up. He makes the kitchen neat and orderly, he makes the sitting room presentable. He doesn’t sleep, so he doesn’t need to worry about his bedroom. His clothes are folded so they’ll be easy to remove. When he’s gone, someone will be able to turn down the apartment in a matter of hours. It’ll be like he was never there. 

In the morning, he leaves his shield in the kitchen and he goes to the Smithsonian. It’s the closest he can be to his Commandos. He walks through the halls of the exhibit and he looks at the painted faces of his loved ones. He looks at pictures he’d been turning away from. He listens to them speak about him in recorded interviews. He reads their words and their lives. 

There’s a wall dedicated to Bucky. He stands in front of it and he looks at Bucky’s face. He’s so young. He’s James’ age in that photo. He’s looking out into the distance, and he’s already dragged down through the war. He’s exhausted, and Steve knows that he just wants it all to be over just as much as Steve does. Steve can still hear Bucky’s scream in his head, and he presses a hand to the corners of Bucky’s face. He doesn’t say the goodbye he wanted to out loud.  There are too many people, and Bucky wouldn’t care in any case. 

Actually, Steve thinks as he gets on his motorcycle, Bucky would be furious with him. He’d be irate. He’d sit there and yell his head off, beating him senseless until Steve agreed it was a bad idea. Bucky wasn’t here anymore, though. Bucky died in 1945, and he didn’t get a say in how Steve lives his life. Or, in this case, doesn’t live it. 

Steve visits Peggy in a nursing home outside of Maryland. He sits beside her and listens to her talk. She recognizes him until she doesn’t, and his chest bursts as he holds her hand and watches her cry for the life they never had together. He wants to tell her that they had that life. He wants to tell her that they were happy, that they had children, that they had the romance that lasted the ages. He wants to tell her all of this, but there’s a photo of Gabe by her bed. There’s a photo of Gabe and she begged his forgiveness for moving on and finding happiness on her own. He gives it to her, because he could never deny her anything, and he feels destroyed by the time he finally leaves her side. 

It’s for the best, he knows, as he drags himself to the VA. He listens in as Sam runs his meeting. He listens to soldiers talk about their demons, and he feels his demon growing more insistent within him. He listens to Sam telling him a story about how he watched his partner fall to his death. Bucky’s scream is louder than ever before. Sam lost Riley only a few years before. Steve lost Bucky a lifetime ago, and he made up a fantasy world where Bucky was alive just to cope with it. Steve has no right to be hearing Bucky’s voice in his head, when Sam clearly has the worst of it. 

Sam asks him if he’s thinking about leaving the service, and Steve has to catch himself before he admits he plans on leaving in a more permanent manner. He has to keep himself from saying it, because if he does he knows he won’t be allowed to follow through. He knows he’ll lose everything. 

“What makes you happy?” Sam asks. His wife. His kids. Bucky. The answers are obvious, but so is the truth. 

“I don’t know,” he says instead. He makes a half-hearted promise to find out, and then quietly excuses himself. He’s ready. He’s ready to leave. His body feels worse then ever before. His heart feels heavier than it has ever been. He manages to complete the drive over to his apartment. He manages to walk up the steps. 

His neighbor greets him, and he makes a half-hearted effort to appear normal. Panic flairs within him, suddenly, at the thought of entering his home alone. If he goes in there, he knows what he’s going to do. He invites her in with him, desperate to cling to one final hope that maybe there’s a way to feel better. 

She turns him down. 

He’s not surprised. 

He is, however, surprised to find that someone else is in his apartment. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just walk through the front door. He supposes that he wants his death on his terms, and he has too many years as a soldier to just walk into a fight he knows nothing about. He finds Fury inside, and he loathes it when Fury tells him his apartment is bugged. He wonders how long he would have had to kill himself before someone came in to stop him. He would have had to be quick. The thought torments him. 

He’s about to say something else, when bullets are sailing through the wall. Fury is down. He’s been shot. His neighbor is bursting into his home. He’s staring at Fury’s body and his eyes snap up to see where the threat came from. He doesn’t stop to think. He takes hold of his shield, and he runs. 

He pours every ounce of energy into his body. He runs hard. He runs fast. He scales walls and stairs and he rounds corners too far. He leaps up onto the roof and he throws his shield as hard as he can. There is a man with long brown hair, leather clothes, and a metal arm. He turns to catch his shield, and he throws it right back. 

He throws it like he’s thrown it before, accurate and with burning force. He looks down at the shield in dumb surprise. No one has ever done that before. Not since - well…it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. The shooter got away. 

Afterwards, Steve thinks that the day that follows Fury’s death moved like a dream. Fury dies, and he watches Natasha grieve. He watches her try to say she’s going to be all right, but she’s not. He watches her struggle to deal with the pain of loss, and he wonders if she’d have reacted like this with him. He doesn’t think so. She’s known Fury longer. It doesn’t stop him from feeling sick. 

He’s dragged back to the Triskelion, and he’s interrogated by Pierce. He wonders if the universe is conspiring to hate him, because he had been trying to get one night alone to kill himself, and now suddenly everything is falling apart and he’s the one left holding the bag. SHIELD betrays him. They attack him. He’s forced to fight, flee, escape. He’s left as the only one who can figure out how to avenge Fury’s death, and he hates that this is put onto him. He hates that he has to do one final thing before the end. 

But despite their differences, Fury told Steve the truth. He deserves to be put to rest with honor and dignity. He deserves to have his killer caught and brought to justice. Steve’s life isn’t as important as Fury’s, and neither is his death. He needs to wait, and he swallows back the pain that decision causes him. 

Natasha, Steve knows, suspects something’s wrong. She’s been trying to get him together with a girl for ages, and trying to help him find a place in the world. Now, she asks the questions that make Steve shift unhappily. “It’s hard to find someone with shared life experiences,” he tells her. Natasha just nods thoughtfully. They change the topic. They have to. Steve doesn’t want to think about the people in his life that he lost. He just wants this to be finished. He’s tired of explaining. 

When they arrive in Camp Lehigh, Steve feels his anxiety spike again. When they find SHIELD’s first facility, he feels his tension rise. When they discover that Zola has been around all this time, pervading the world and making everything he ever did worthless, he explodes. He has nothing left. He has been rubbed raw. His apathy wars with his desire to make everything just stop. Mendel’s mantra repeats unbiddenly within his mind:  _This world is real. This isn’t a dream. If this was a dream, Bucky would be alive. He’s not. I’m alone. I’m not a father. Bucky’s dead. I’m alone._ He has been woken up to face a world that he left in shambles. He has been torn from a dream he loved because he failed. He never stopped HYDRA. He never avenged Bucky’s death. He never succeeded in doing anything right. 

They’re being attacked from above, and Steve protects Natasha. He can’t find himself to work out what he’s supposed to do anymore, but he knows that they need to do something to end this. They need to stop HYDRA once and for all. They need to destroy this menace. They need to avenge Fury, and Bucky, and everyone else who Steve has failed. Then, and only then, can he just let it all go. 

He goes back to DC. He finds Sam. 

He has work to do. 

He’s going to find this Winter Soldier that Natasha fears, that Zola groomed, and he’s going to kill him. 

Sam volunteers to help, Natasha’s already in it for the long haul, and together, they kidnap Sitwell and they prepare for their final assault on HYDRA. Steve has the entire mission rolling in his head. He knows what he needs to do. He can feel his blood pulsing in his veins. He can feel the urge to burn everything to the ground. 

They’re attacked on the freeway and Steve fights back with everything he can. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being dragged from one war-zone to the next. He’s sick of HYDRA and Nazis. He’s sick of never being free from violence. He signed up because it was the right thing to do. He signed up because Bucky was leaving and he couldn’t let him go by himself. He signed up because they needed help over in Europe and he had something to prove to the world. 

He wanted it to stop. He wanted it all to stop. He was tired. He was sore. He was torn away from the only happiness he had ever known, and he would never get it back again. He knows now, undoubtedly, that this has to be real. He would never dream that HYDRA was still around. He would never dream that Peggy and Howard accepted Zola into their ranks. He would never dream that any of this horror and destruction would come to pass. 

Aliens, gods, and Hydra - things he never thought he’d see, all pushing the fabrics of reality until he wast straining against the void. He hates more than he’s ever hated, and his cloud of darkness only expands more. He fights against people he worked with when he first joined SHIELD. He fights against a small militia in the streets of his nation’s capitol.

He wants it all to stop. 

He sees the Winter Soldier and he fights as violently and as aggressively as he can. He hits out with his shield, his fists, his feet. He strikes hard and fast and he blocks every attack that comes his way. They’re almost evenly matched. The Soldier changes weapons abruptly and Steve uses every ounce of strength to adjust to his skill. He is so strong, but Steve is determined not to fail. He throws the bastard as hard as he can, wrenching his fingers into the mask on the Soldier’s face. He’s breathing heavily as he sees the mask tumble away. He keeps his eyes fixed on the soldier’s back. He watches everything as the soldier turns to face him. 

Steve’s world shatters. 

“Bucky?” he asks. 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the Soldier says. There’s a vortex under Steve’s feet. It’s pulling him deep into the center of the earth. There’s a scream in his ears. There’s a cloud in his chest. He’s drowning. He’s falling. He’s dying. The mortal blow hasn’t been struck. 

Years of dreams slam through his mind. Bucky’s alive. He’s alive. Mendel’s mantra wars with the reality in front of him.  _This world is real. This isn’t a dream. If this was a dream, Bucky would be alive. He’s not. I’m alone. I’m not a father. Bucky’s dead. I’m alone._ But he can’t be alone if Bucky’s alive. Bucky’s alive and so this can’t be real. This can’t be real. 

He’s pushed onto his knees. His vision blurs. He doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t particularly care. Bucky’s alive. He’s alive. He’s _alive._ The words spiral around his head. He feels like he’s going to be sick. He  _knows_ he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t understand. The world’s real, but it isn’t real. He doesn’t know what’s going on around him. 

He’s in the back of a van. They’ve all been capture. He’s latched in tight. He can’t bring himself to care. He’s told something, he responds with something, he can’t look up. He can’t process this. Bucky’s alive. This world’s not real. His kids. His kids are out there. That woman he said goodbye to isn’t Peggy. This world is wrong. Bucky’s alive. Bucky’s alive, and they need to find their family. 

Aliens, gods, and HYDRA - how could any of that possibly be real? How could any of that truly exist. Steve had started to believe it, but it was wrong. It was all wrong. It wasn’t true. He wasn’t really here. He was asleep, or dreaming, or something else. Bucky’s alive. He needs to go. He needs to get free. 

Maria is there, it’s so convenient. She lets them loose, and Steve’s half hysteric with the thought that of course she’s there. This is a dream. Nothing works out that well in reality. They’re led into a bunker and Fury’s alive too. Coulson’s alive. Fury’s alive. Bucky’s alive. Aliens, gods, and HYDRA. Steve looks at Fury and Fury looks back. 

“I didn’t know about Barnes,” Fury tells him. 

“Would you have said anything if you did?” Steve hisses. Fury doesn’t respond. He knows the truth. Steve was on to them from the start. He never believed this world, and they kept trying to tell him it was real. They wouldn’t have let him anywhere  _near_ Bucky if they thought Steve was close to finding out. Steve was going to tear SHIELD down to pieces and salt the earth when he was done. He was going to destroy anything and everything. No one was going to be free from his wrath. 

He nearly laughs when they tell him that they’ll help him. He doesn’t trust any of them. They lied. This world doesn’t exist, and they’re keeping him from his family. When this is over, he’s going to make sure they all burn with the organization they tried to pass off as good. 

This world did something to Bucky.  They hurt him. They made him do bad things. They made him into something that wasn’t right at all. Steve leads his team into battle, and he confronts Bucky on the helicarrier. As much as he hates SHIELD and what they’ve done. He knows the rest of this world doesn’t deserve to die. He knows that the only way to get vengeance against HYDRA is to do this. He tries to talk to Bucky, and Bucky stares at him like he doesn’t have a clue as to who Steve is.

They fight. 

Steve doesn’t remember the last time they actually seriously fought each other. Certainly not while they were raising the kids. Certainly not during the war. They got into friendly tussles, but nothing like this. This is the first time. Bucky’s fighting him like he wants to kill him, and Steve is fighting Bucky like he wants to save him. 

He calls Bucky’s name and he begs him to listen to him. He breathes out memories and pleas. He wraps his body around Bucky’s and he begs him to understand. Bucky just fights back. He fights back desperately and without a thought to his own safety. Steve wonders what they did to him. SHIELD tried to convince him the world wasn’t real, that his family didn’t exist. Did HYDRA do the same? Did they tear him apart the same way SHIELD did? 

The more Bucky fights against him, the more Steve wavers. He can’t fight Bucky to the death. He knows that. He loves Bucky too much. He won’t let anything happen to him. He just can’t do that. He gets the helicarriers locked, and he tells Maria to fire. Bucky’s shot him already, it’s just a matter of time before he bleeds out and gets the death he wanted before he learned the truth. 

Bucky’s still lost and uncertain. He still doesn’t understand what’s going ton completely. He still looks like everything’s falling apart around him and nothing makes sense. “You’re my friend,” Steve tries. He’s tackled to the ground and Steve gasps as he feels his ribs burst. 

“You’re my mission,” Bucky hisses at him. He’s punched again and again, harder and harder, he’s struggling to even see properly, when he feels Bucky freeze above him. 

“Then finish it,” he requests. He’s so tired. He’s so confused. He doesn’t know where he is or what’s going on. Is this world real? Are the dreams real? Which is fake? He’s exhausted, and Bucky keeps fighting him. He knows he can’t stop him. He knows that if his children really are out there, he’s failed them all. “I’m with you until the end of the line,” he tells Bucky.

The floor gives way beneath him, and he falls. 

He hears Bucky’s scream, from a lifetime ago, echo through his ears. 

He knows it’s not real. 


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky saved his life. Steve knows that to be true. He was going to drown, and Bucky pulled him to shore. He saved his life, and Steve needs to find him and remind him who he is. He needs to get him to remember their life together, their home, their family. He needs Bucky to remember, because once he remembers they can find their way back. Catherine is waiting for her father just as much as James, Sarah, Meghan and Ian are waiting for theirs. He needed to get to Bucky as fast as he could, no matter the cost. 

Steve only feels slightly guilty about letting Sam come with him. He couldn’t escape without someone knowing, and Sam all but decided he was going and that was it. Steve was idling to play along for now. Sam was a lot better than any SHIELD agent. In the back of his head, though, he plans it all out. He plans every detail of every mission. He knows how it all will end, and he knows how to deal with Sam when it comes to it. They travel light, and Tony bank rolls the process. Steve was surprised, that is until he hears Tony’s reasoning. The Winter Soldier killed Howard Stark. Tony wants to know more about that death. 

Steve thanks Tony for his assistance, knowing that he’ll bring Bucky to see him if it is the last thing he does. Howard’s and Dugan’s deaths are just one more notch against this horrible nightmare. Bucky couldn’t have killed them. Not really. This isn’t real. Bucky wouldn’t have done that. He never would have killed his friends. He would have stopped, like he stopped with Steve on the helicarrier. He wouldn’t have followed through. Steve  _knows_  better. 

Steve tracks Bucky to New York. He chases him through Brooklyn. He runs after him in Jersey, and then follows him across Pennsylvania. Sometimes he catches glimpses of Bucky. Sometimes he actually sees him in the distance. Sometimes he imagines that Bucky looks back and sees him. Sam drives him forward, and together they continue to track the soldier everyone thinks is a master assassin. 

“You doin’ all right, Steve?” Sam asks him as they finally stop in Wichita. There’s nothing in Wichita except the faint whispers of a dream, and Steve spends his time looking outwards in hopes that he’ll receive another sign. 

“I’m fine,” Steve tells him. His head hurts. His eyes are tired. He’s miserable, actually, and Steve knows that sooner or later he’s going to crash. He’s worried he’ll slip up. He’s worried Sam will hear him, and realize what he’s going to say. He’s worried that he’s going to end up with Mendel again, being told that Bucky is dead and that’s why this place is real. He almost misses it when he sees a flash of movement and a glimmer of metal. 

Sam jumps forwards and kicks into the air. He flies after Bucky even as Steve runs as fast as he possibly can. Sam cuts Bucky off and holds his hands up in a placating way, even as Steve skids around a corner. The night is lit by a bright moon lofting above them. The sidewalk glistens with puddles of rain. Steve watches Bucky jump into an alley and scale a wall. He’s right behind him. Sam kicks back into the air and he can hear Bucky yelp in surprise just as he crests the edge. 

He gets to the roof, and Bucky’s turned to look at him. Sam’s standing still, breathing hard, and Bucky’s glancing back and forth between them. “Stop, please,” Steve asks him quietly. Bucky opens his mouth, but seems to think better of it. He hesitates. He looks over to Sam again, and then back at Steve. His brows are knitted together. He’s sucking in air. “Bucky, it’s me, it’s-”

“Steve?” His voice sounds like it’s been torn over glass, but it sounds a thousand times better than the terrified scream that has been running on repeat through Steve’s mind. 

“Yes. Yes, God yes. You remember?” Bucky’s fingers are trembling. He shakes his head. He’s afraid. God, he’s afraid. Steve’s going to kill anyone who had a hand in this, and he’s not going to let them die easy. This is going to be painful, and he knows that it’s not going to end any time soon. They’re going to get their family back, no matter what. “Do you remember me?” 

“I-I don’t-you used to be smaller.” He’s blinking rapidly, lifting a hand to his head like it’s causing him pain. Steve takes a step closer, and Sam shoots him a warning look. 

“I did, I did, you remember that.” 

“I…I fell.” He drops his hand and is looking at Steve for confirmation. The echo of his scream slices through Steve’s synapses. He nods his head when the words have trouble forming. “Hydra…I-Hydra found me.” 

“No.” Sam’s head snaps up, but Steve doesn’t care about him right now. He doesn’t care, because soon it won’t matter. He takes another step closer to Bucky. Bucky’s looking at him like he has the answers of the universe, and he’s not going to let Bucky believe any more lies. He wasn’t picked up by Hydra. He was saved. “Peggy found you.” 

“What?” Bucky’s fallen completely still. Steve approaches even closer. Sam looks openly confused. 

“Peggy found you, and you two found me. We finished the war together, Buck. We went home.” 

“I don’t-No, I…I don’t remember that, I-” Bucky’s shaking. Tears are in his eyes. He glances around wildly. He doesn’t seem to know what to do. Steve reaches out and presses a hand to his shoulder. 

“The fire, do you remember the fire?” Bucky blinks at him, he’s falling apart in front of his eyes. Steve knows he doesn’t have much time. He knows he’s hurting Bucky with this, but he needs confirmation. Bucky nods. 

“It was hot. It was hot, my arm-”

“That’s how you lost it?” Steve asks, awareness shooting through him. Bucky’s mouth opens and closes. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“The fall- I think, the fall?” 

“No, you had it after you fell.”

“I did?” 

“Steve…” Sam’s getting closer. “Steve, what’s going on?” Steve ignores him. 

“Look at me,” Steve places his hands on either side of Bucky’s head. “Do you trust me?” he asks. Sam’s within striking distance. 

“Yes?” Bucky doesn’t sound certain, but it’s the best Steve has at the moment. He doesn’t hesitate. He punches hard and fast and knocks Sam out. His body crumples. He falls to the ground and Bucky jumps out of the way. He looks between Steve and Sam in shock and confusion. 

“We need to go. Now.” Steve pushes Bucky forwards, and Bucky stumbles. He stumbles, but he rallies himself together. They run, side by side, and they don’t look back. 

Steve has a back up plan in every town they go to, and it is easy to fall off the radar. Bucky clearly knows how to do the same, because they soon have ditched their clothes and found replacements that are untraceable and unrecognizable. They fall into crowds and they slip out of sight. Within moments, no one knows where they are. 

Steve brings Bucky out of Kansas and leads him west. He’s afraid to talk too much until he knows that they aren’t being watched. He doesn’t know the rules of this work yet, but he knows that there are cameras everywhere. There is always someone behind the next tree. They are never going to be fully alone. They come to the Rocky Mountains and Steve grabs a pack full of supplies. They hike into the woods, and the entire time, Bucky looks to him for guidance. 

They’re as isolated as they can be, and Steve gently guides Bucky to sit by a stream. He washes Bucky’s face. He washes his arms and legs. It’s only been a few weeks since they last saw each other, but like Steve: Bucky’s injuries are all gone. Zola had done something to Bucky, Steve knows. That’s why he’s alive. That’s why Catherine never got sick. Catherine had Bucky’s enhanced genes. It made sense. 

“What do you remember?” Steve asks him quietly. 

“Pain,” he says immediately. He’s shivering. He’s cold. He looks at Steve with wide eyes. “Hydra, I was, I was working for Hydra.” 

“No…no something’s wrong.” Steve took Bucky’s face between his palms. “Listen to me. We were in our house,”

“Our house?” Bucky laughs, hard and bitter. “What house, we never had a house,” 

“After the war,” Steve prods. His chest hurts as panic rises. Doubt circles his brain. “After the war, remember? You, me, and Peggy were together. We went home, all of us.”

“We went home?” Bucky’s hands reached up and held onto Steve’s wrists. 

“Yes. We went home. I got married, and you were my best man.” Bucky’s looking at Steve with wide eyes. He’s hopeful, Steve realizes. He’s hopeful that every word he says is true. He has no intentions to lie. He’s going to tell Bucky everything, and then they’re going to find their kids. “I had a son, remember? I named him after you.”

“You named your son after me?” His voice is light and dazed. Steve nods in response. 

“James Gabriel Timothy Jacques Rogers.” 

“You  _didn’t_ ,” Bucky sounds almost horrified. 

“You were all there. All of you. You’re his godfather, Buck.” 

“How, how old is he now?” Bucky’s hands tighten on his wrists. He’s desperate to know. He’s trying so hard to remember, and Steve gives it to him. 

“He’s…he’d be twenty-six now. He’s married, to your daughter, Catherine. They have a son.” Bucky tries to pull away, but Steve won’t let him. 

“No.” 

“It’s true,” he presses. 

“No, no I-I don’t remember. Steve, I can’t. I don’t remember this. I don’t remember.” He jerks away roughly, nearly falling into the stream. He grinds his fingers into the dirt and heaves loudly. 

“Wait, wait!” Steve goes for his bag. He scrambles to find it, and then lets out a breath of relief when his fingers close around his sketchbook. He holds it out to Bucky to see. “Look. Look I drew them all.” Bucky looks. He reaches for the book and he flips it open. He’s trembling violently and one hand is pressed to his skull, but he’s staring at the pictures and he’s  _alive_. Steve keeps forcing himself to believe. 

 _Bucky’s alive, this world isn’t real, we need to go home._ He repeats the words over and over in his head, watching as Bucky flips through the pages. He’s desperate for some kind of sign, some kind of symbol that proves that Bucky remembers. He has to remember, it can’t just be Steve. He has to know something. 

He pauses over the image of Catherine and him dancing at her wedding. He trails his hand over the curves of Catherine’s face. He stops when his fingers end up over his own legs. He looks up at Steve and Steve looks at him expectantly.

“I don’t remember.” It’s like an arrow through his heart. Steve recoils in shock. “I…I remember you. I remember Hydra. I remember…pain. I caused so much pain. I hurt…I killed. Steve I-”

“It wasn’t real.” Steve takes the book and forces Bucky to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t real. I woke up from the ice. They said I was frozen in the arctic for seventy years, Buck. They said that I was just in…in stasis or something this whole time. They told me you were dead. They said that this isn’t real.” He shakes the book. “They said so many things that weren’t true.” 

“They didn’t know I was alive,” Bucky whispers. “No one did. I couldn’t…as soon as someone knew they died. Steve I-I killed Howard.” 

“ _No._  Howard’s alive.” Bucky got tears slipping down his face. 

“He’s alive? And-and Dugan? He’s alive?” 

“They’re both alive, and they’re safe, and they’re fine. They’re alive, but they’re not  _here_. Bucky, something happened. I don’t know what, but this isn’t real.”

“I…it’s not?” He sounds so young. He’s desperate to believe, and Steve nods his head. 

“It’s not. It’s not. They kept trying to make me forget too. They kept saying that they didn’t exist, but they  _did._ They did, and we need to find them. We have to get home.” 

“How?” Steve doesn’t know. He hadn’t gotten that far yet. He just knew that he needed to talk to Bucky, needed to get him to remember, and then they needed to figure out how they ended up in this horrible parody of their reality. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But we’ll figure it out, okay?” Bucky nods. His eyes trail towards the sketchbook. 

“Can you…can you tell me more?” he asks. Steve immediately opens it up to the first page. 

“This is Ian,” he starts, and slowly he describes every child and every memory he can recall. 

“Howard’s alive?” Bucky keeps confirming.

“Howard’s alive,” Steve keeps affirming. 

“I didn’t kill anyone?”

“No. They’re fake. They’re fake memories. They didn’t happen. They’re trying to make you believe what’s not real - you fought  _me_  even.” Bucky nods. 

“I wouldn’t do that.” 

“No you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. This isn’t real.” 

“It’s not real,” Bucky repeats dutifully. He looks back at the book. “I have a daughter,” he whispers. 

“You have a daughter,” Steve tells him. They talk all through the night. Bucky believes him. Steve is so relieved. 

In the morning, they head out. They start traveling to every Hyrda compound that Bucky can remember, and they destroy it. They kill everyone inside, and immediately start searching the records. If Hydra and SHIELD were one in the same, then they had to know more about how Bucky and Steve were brought back. 

All the documents had been altered. What letter can be found on ‘the Winter Soldier’ was coated in lies and subterfuge. Everything said that Bucky fell in 1945 and was picked up by the Russians.  He became their soldier, and he killed countless people. They explain how he got his metal arm, and they talk about him like he’s just another doll. Anger coats Steve’s skin as he shreds through the papers. There’s nothing about Catherine or Teddy in anything related to Bucky. There’s nothing about his own family in anything related to him. 

Bucky asks him to confirm that it’s all fake every day. He walks through the world in a semi-permanent daze. He comes up for air only to make sure it’s not real, and then he goes back to a vapid existence where he hardly interacts with anything. He follows Steve with the kind of loyalty and abandon he always followed Steve with. He doesn’t complain, doesn’t argue. Sometimes he teases Steve, but most of the time he just seems like he’s out of touch with everything. 

“It’s not real, right?” Bucky asks when he’s torn awake from a nightmare that held him captive. He woke up screaming, kicking and fighting back, begging for help that never came. Steve holds him close. 

“It’s not real,” he promises. “It’s not real. We’re going to find a way to go home. This isn’t real. You’re safe.” Bucky clings to him whenever he wakes up, trembling and whispering nightmares about the cold.

“Kept me frozen. I was so cold. I was so cold, Steve. Couldn’t wake up. I knew it was wrong, and I couldn’t wake up. I was so cold.” Steve runs a hand through Bucky’s hair and tells him it’s going to be all right. It’s okay. It’s not real. It’s a nightmare, they’re going to be free soon. They’re going to be free. 

Steve whispers memories into Bucky’s ear. He tells him about finding Catherine on the bench with a bruised cheek. He tells him about how Bucky nearly killed Jack because of what he’d done. He tells him about how Catherine calls him ‘papa’ now, how she loves him so much. Bucky clings to these stories. He asks Steve to tell him more. They bask in the glow of the memories. 

“I’m going to remember,” he tells Steve. “I have to…they can’t be gone forever. I’m going to remember.” Steve knows he will. It’s only a matter of time. 

They shut down Hydra base after Hydra base. Anything that’s marked SHIELD they dismantle. There is no back up. There is no help. It’s just them and their memories. In retrospect, they last longer than Steve thought they would. Eventually they’re cornered in Lebanon, and the Avengers are there en masse. 

Sam’s joined them and they’ve surrounded Steve and Bucky just as they’re fleeing a ruined Hydra compound. Bucky looks to Steve for guidance, and Steve clenches his fists. He glares at them, ready to fight every one of them for even thinking that they could get away with what they did. 

“Steve…we’re just worried,” Natasha starts. “We just wanted to know that you were okay.” 

“We’re fine. If that’s all you wanted, then you have it. You can leave.” Natasha shakes her head. Bucky’s grip tightens on his gun. He looks to Steve and Steve motions for him to stand down. He would rather not hurt these people, but if they pushed him much further - they all would be held accountable to the actions of SHIELD. They all would be liable for stealing their family. 

“What’s going on, why’d you knock Sam out once you found him?” Natasha motions to Bucky.

“I don’t owe any of you an explanation.” 

“You said you’d trust me,” Natasha reminds him. 

“You  _broke_ that trust when you didn’t tell me who he was!” Steve shouts back. Natasha flinches. Her eyes widen and her mouth opens slightly. It’s not easy to catch her off guard, but she looks like he’d slapped her. 

“I remember you,” Bucky said suddenly. He sounds uncertain. He glances towards Steve to confirm, but Steve has no idea what he’s talking about. He looks back at Bucky, and Bucky licks his lips. “You were…I was…I was killing an Iranian scientist…You were in front of him. I shot through you.” Steve feels like he’s been doused with cold water. That’s what Natasha first told him all those months ago. She told him that the Winter Soldier had done that, and he’d taken it as just one more lie to keep him trapped in the world view that he had. Another mask to put over Bucky’s life. 

“Yes,” she agrees. “Yes, you did.” 

“No. No that didn’t happen,” Steve shook his head. 

“Steve, I remember her,” Bucky’s unsettled. He’s losing ground. He’s afraid, and Steve knows why. If this is true…then is all the rest of what Hydra did true? 

“It’s fake. It’s a false memory it’s not-”

“ _What_?” Natasha asks. “You don’t believe he shot me?” 

“Woah, woah, woah. Settle down. All of you.” Sam puts himself between them, and Steve notes that the bruise from his head has healed. He’ll be fine. “Steve, explain, what’s going on?” 

“What’s going on?” Steve echoes. 

“Please, man, we’re just trying to figure this out. I know SHIELD kept some stuff from you, I know you’re upset. But we weren’t a part of that. Just explain it to us.” 

“My wife and kids are gone. Where are they?” For a moment, just for a moment, Steve almost believes that the Avengers had no idea what he was talking about. They all look like they did when the aliens first attacked New York. They’re staring at him with stunned expressions of disbelief, and he swallows thickly. 

“You’re married?” Tony asks incredulously. “You have  _kids?_ ” 

“Steve…you were frozen in the arctic for seventy years,” Clint says. 

“No I wasn’t!” Steve shouts. Bucky’s looking between them all in horror. 

“Yes, you were. I was a part of the team making sure you were transported back to New York safely. I was there when they were unfreezing you. I saw you - you were frozen.”

“Stop  _lying_  to me!” 

“We’re not lying to you, Steve,” Bruce tells him. He holds his hands up, and gives him a look that would make anyone else feel sympathized with. He doesn’t. He feels sick. 

“Yes, you are. I have two girls, and two boys. I have a grandson. Everyone keeps telling me they don’t exist, but they do. They  _do_.” 

“I have a daughter…” Bucky speaks up at long last. His voice is tenuous, uncertain. He’s looking at Steve to confirm, and he nods his head. Everyone’s even more surprised by that. They all are exchanging looks and forming half attempted sentences. 

“Do you remember your daughter, Bucky?” Natasha asks quietly.  She has her finger in her ear. Someone’s talking to her, feeding her information. “Do you remember anything about her that Steve didn’t tell you?” 

“I…” He stops. His face is a picture of tragedy. 

“Do you remember spending time with her? Watching over her? Sending her money? Do you remember  _anything_  at all about her?” Steve looks to his friend, he looks to his friend who he watched raise Catherine for years. He looks to his friend, and he sees the exact moment that Bucky’s faith waivers. 

“No,” he whispers. There’s so much sorrow and uncertainty there. He looks at Steve as though to apologize. “Steve I-I don’t remember.” Then he turns back to Natasha. “But-but my memory’s not all back yet. I’m still trying, I’m still getting more each day.” 

“I know, it’s okay,” she soothes. “But you don’t remember anything about Steve’s kids either, do you? You don’t remember his wife. You don’t remember where you lived. You don’t remember anything about this…but you remember Hydra. You remember the war. You remember before the war. You remember  _everything_ else.” He chokes unhappily, shaking his head and pressing his hands to his eyes.

“No. No I don’t. There’s- there’s time missing. There is. I promise there is. It’s not real. It’s not.” 

“Stop it!” Steve shouts. “Stop telling him that!” Natasha glares at him. 

“You’re the one who gave him a fantasy to believe. You’re the one who gave him hope that doesn’t exist. You were  _dreaming_ , Steve. You were asleep for seventy years, and anything you saw there was a  _dream_. You weren’t married, you didn’t have kids. You  _dreamed_ a life that doesn’t exist. It’s one thing for you to believe it, but you can’t let Bucky believe it too. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to you.” 

“I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t.” 

“Yes, you were Steve. I know it was an attractive dream, but it wasn’t real.” 

“Mendel said - he  _said_  if Bucky was dead then this was real. He said my family could only be alive if Bucky was.” Steve knows it sounds weak. He knows it sounds petulant. He knows it sounds like he’s just made this up. He knows all of that, but it doesn’t matter. Bucky’s alive. Bucky’s alive, and that was what the deal was. His mind couldn’t accept Bucky’s death, so it made up a fantasy, if Bucky’s alive then that means that his world isn’t real. It means his family is alive too. 

“Lionel Mendel?” it’s Bucky who speaks. Steve feels his eyes squeeze shut as he slowly turns to look at his friend. Bucky’s face is twisted downwards with grief. “Lionel Mendel, was that his name?”

“Yes.” 

“He’s Hydra, Steve,” Clint says. He looks like he’s been kicked in the gut. “The info dump…it took ages to go through it all, but we found it in the end. Mendel was Hydra.”

“He worked on me,” Bucky whispers. “He was there…he told me…he told me not to fasten the mask too tight on the bridge. They…wanted it to fall off.” He sinks his head into his hand and he takes a shuddering breath. “It’s not real is it? The kids, the house in Brooklyn? It’s all make believe.” He sounds exhausted. His body’s curling in on himself. He chokes a sob as his hands grip his hair. “Which means…which means I killed those people. I killed them all. Oh God…Oh God…”

“Bucky?” Steve’s not sure he’s breathing. He feels like he’s having an asthma attack. His vision’s tunneling. His breaths are unsatisfactory. He’s gasping for air, and Bucky looks up at him in heartbroken despair. 

His hand goes to the gun on his waist, and he draws it out. Everyone moves. Bucky jerks backwards, trying desperately to get the shot off, Steve dives for his arm and twists. The bullet goes flying. He feels a sharp sting against the side of his head, and everything disappears. Finally, he thinks, he can sleep. 

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

 

Steve wakes up, and he’s in a room with only a bed and a door. He tips his head back and he takes a few breaths. The crushing weight of the world that he’d felt before he saw Fury die in his apartment has come back. His entire body feels like its a thousand pounds. He rolls over on his side, and he goes to sleep again. He doesn’t dream.

When he wakes again, Bucky is there. He’s huddled against the bed, knees drawn to his chest and hands haging off his apex of his legs. He glances up at Steve when he notice Steve’s awake, but neither say sanything. Steve closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say to Bucky. He doesn’t know why he’s here.

“Steve?” Bucky asks him. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Steve tells him. “It’s my fault. All of this.”

“No it’s not.” Bucky reaches out and touches his arm. He jerks away.

“Just go, please.” Bucky doesn’t. He keeps his hand on Steve’s arm and they stay together in silence. Steve wishes he knows what that means, but he doesn’t trust himelf anymore. He doesn’t trust what interpretations he makes. He can’t. It’s too much.

He finds out afterward that Bucky’s bullet grazed him. He bled so much, and was so still right afterwards, that Bucky thought he’d killed him. It had taken all of the Avengers to keep him from following suit, and even then it only worked when they pointed out that Steve was still breathing. Steve, selfishly, wishes the bullet had done more damage. He’d like to forget the past seventy years. He’d like to forget ever losing Bucky, ever going to war. He’s not that lucky.

Tony comes by and tries to talk to him, but Steve doesn’t want to talk to the son of a man that he imagined as a horrible parent. He doesn’t want to talk to Natasha, Clint, Bruce, or even Thor when he finally shows up. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He wants to sleep and just let everything move on without him.

He reminds himself he has no reason to feel this way. He reminds himself that there are people out there who suffered real pain and he’s dishonoring them by acting like he has a reason to cry. He reminds himself of everything he’s been doing to coping since he woke up. It has just about the same effect.

Bucky hasn’t left his side, but he hasn’t tried to talk to him either. They just sit beside each other and they both think about the past. Bucky, Steve knows, has a _real_ reason to be upset. Hydra destroyed the person he was; made him kill loved ones, made him into a soulless assassin. Bucky deserves to be broken up. He deserves to be unhappy. He deserves to grieve for the life he lost before everything went to hell.

Steve doesn’t know what to say to him. He can’t think of one comforting word that will not sound trite coming from his lips. Bucky was tortured and he’d had his memory played against him for years, and the first thing Steve did when he woke up was to manipulate him just like Hydra. He was no better then them. He doesn’t know why Bucky won’t leave him alone.

The Avengers let him leave the room eventually. He doesn’t know what they expect of him. He showers. He dresses. He sits on a couch. He lets them talk around him. He doesn’t try to get involved. He tries to motivate himself to do something, but everything he attempts ends poorly. He burns the food he cooks, he can’t think of anything to draw except faces of people who don’t exist, he breaks the glasses that he picks up. He gives up. There’s no point.

Bucky sits with him through all of it. He picks up the pieces of whatever Steve’s done wrong, and Steve doesn’t understand why he’s doing it. “Just leave it alone. Leave it alone. For _God’s sake Bucky_.” He shoves Bucky backwards when he tries to clean up broken glass off the floor. “Just get the hell away from me.” Bucky flinches at his tone and stares up at him with a wounded expression.

Tony decides enough is enough. He snaps for everyone to gather in the sitting room, insists that includes Steve, and has Thor shepherd them all inside. “This is an intervention,” Tony states proudly. Clint, Natasha, Sam, and Bruce glare at him, and Thor seems confused.  Tony moves on anyway. “Mendel was Hydra,” Tony says.

“So you’ve said,” Steve murmurs.

“So maybe you shouldn’t listen to what a Hydra agent has to say about your mental state.” He motions for Jarvis to play a video, and suddenly lights flash and dim. Steve stares at an image of himself and Mendel. It’s from one of Steve’s earlier therapy sessions. There were cameras always watching him. He’s not surprised it’s recorded. He doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t care.

“Steve everything his guy has to say is bull shit,” Sam tells him. Steve doesn’t listen. He watches as Jarvis plays the breakdown in Fury’s office. He watches Mendel telling him he doesn’t deserve to feel upset. He watches everything he already knows. None of this is a surprise. He doesn’t understand Tony’s point.

Bucky does, though. Bucky gets more tense with each passing minute. He clenches his fists at his sides. He glares at the screen. He breathes heavily. He becomes angry. He looks back at Steve and he clutches his arm. “This is not your fault,” he insists.

“What are you talking about?” he asks Bucky. He doesn’t know how anything could possibly be _more_ his fault.

“We read the notes, Steve.” Natasha steps forward and holds out a file. Steve stares at it and doesn’t take it. Bucky does instead. He opens it up, and Steve sees that is just like the file he’d been given on Bucky. His picture is paper-clipped over an image of his body frozen in ice. His demographics and personal information is scrawled on a white sheet on the right. Bucky flips the pages, and Steve can see the familiar curl of Mendel’s writing. He can’t see what it says, but Bucky’s lips move as he reads. His face turns splotchy with anger.

“The night Fury died,” he says slowly. “The night I killed him, what were you planning on doing?” Everyone is quiet. Steve doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

“Why?” he asks wearily.

“Were you going to off yourself?” Bucky asks. He keeps his eyes downcast. He doesn’t look up. The Avengers are all motionless and silent. Steve lets his hands fall to the sides of his body. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t want to talk about this.

“Why?” he breathes the word out.

“Because that’s what it says right here.” Bucky slams the folder into Steve’s chest so hard he can feel his ribs creak. He coughs and curls over the file. His eyes drop to the pages as it flutters into his lap.

He reads a step-by-step process. He reads notes and suggestions by other doctors. Isolation. Increased anxiety. Heightened depression. Suicidal tendencies exploited on missions. The last day he met with Mendel there was a note on him that read ‘subject expected to take own life within next seventy-two hours.’ Mendel had been spot on. It had been less than 48.

He looks back up to the video Jarvis is playing. He watches how his eyes had turned to look at the pamphlets on child loss; how Mendel told him it was wrong. He remembers the hollow feeling he’d had since that moment.  

“They’re not real,” he whispers. “They’re fake.”

“Steve,” Bucky takes his head and forces it to turn. He forces Steve to make eye contact with him. “It _doesn’t_ matter.” Steve can’t process that. He doesn’t know what that means. He shakes his head. Of course it matters. Of course it matters.

“I imagined it. How can I be upset over something I made up?”

“Let’s _not_ take psychiatric advice from a Nazi extremist to start,” Tony says helpfully.

“Steve, they knew you were upset. They knew you were having a hard time adjusting,” Sam drifts closer. “They knew that, and they played you. They did everything worse. They did everything to make it harder. They blocked you at every chance you had to get help. They made you feel like a commodity, like your feelings didn’t matter. Steve, they’re wrong.”

“They’re not real,” Steve says again. It’s important they know he knows this. It’s important that he shows he understands. Those kids never existed. They will never exist again.

“They were to you,” Natasha tells him. There are tears on his face. Steve lifts a hand to touch his eyes, and he rubs them away. “Steve…you _were_ a parent, even if you were the only one who knew it. That was a lifetime of experiences that impacted you. It doesn’t matter if it’s real. It was real to _you_ , and you lost them.”

“They’re not real,” Steve repeats.

“You dummy,” Bucky breathes. He tugs Steve into his chest. “They are.”

Steve cries. He cries hard.  Snot’s coming from his nose and his hands are tight around Bucky’s back. He’s squeezing Bucky’s shirt to shreds, and he can’t bring himself to care. He gasps huge gaping breaths and he sobs. He can still see them. He can still see his sons and daughters. He can still see Catherine and Teddy-Graham. He can still see them looking to him for help, and he failed them all.

He cries for hours. He can’t seem to stop. Bucky doesn’t go anywhere, and neither do the others. They sit beside him and they let him cry, and then they let him tell them about the family he lost. He chokes his way through stories. Natasha passes Steve’s sketchbook around for them all to see. He tells them everything. It takes days.

He’s not okay.

He’s been rubbed raw with a bristle brush, and he has no idea what he’s meant to do now. Sam gives him pamphlets to read about accepting the loss of a child. He tells him to join forums and chat rooms. He sits at his side as he anxiously drafts his first post. He cries every day.

The tears come without him being aware of them. He’ll be standing in the kitchen, and suddenly the grief will overcome him. He’ll be crying and he won’t understand what happened to cause it. It doesn’t seem to change the outcome. Every time he starts up, one of the Avengers is there. They hold him, listen to him, and they let him talk about his kids.

They encourage him to draw them more. He paints them all. He creates a giant portrait of everyone sitting together. Ian and Meghan are acting like little terrors at the bottom level. James and Catherine are smiling at Teddy on the left. Sarah is in her Dodgers’ uniform. Steve paints himself with his arms around Bucky and Peggy’s shoulders. Tony puts the painting up in the main area of Steve’s home. He looks at it, and is surprised that he feels _better_ somehow.

He draws them again.

And again.

And again.

“It’s normal to feel everything,” Sam tells him. “Anger, denial, guilt, sorrow…you can feel it all. It’s okay. This isn’t your fault. You’re allowed to feel everything. You’re even allowed to feel nothing.” Steve thinks about the apathy that followed him around like a badge of horror. He thinks about how he just gave up on everything. He thinks about how he was ready to just give up entirely.

Bucky makes him food. He makes him eat. They sit together and they eat side by side, and Steve realizes he doesn’t know the last time he actually ate consistently. Even when he was travelling with Sam, food seemed like a sometimes thing. It never struck him just how desperately he needed to feel full. Some days it makes him feel worse. It makes him feel like his body was weighed down even more. Others, it makes him feel better. He doesn’t feel faint; he doesn’t feel like his head was buzzing with pain. It is a start.

There are days when he’s blindsided by the loss. There are days when he goes to a store and he’s buying crackers, and he becomes frozen in an aisle. There’s a box of cookies with _Teddy-Grahams_ stamped across the front. He stares at the box, knowing he’s crying in the middle of a store, and cannot bring himself to move.

Whichever person is with him that day; gently steered him away. He fights, though. He reaches out and buys the box. He hugs it to his chest the entire walk back to the tower, and then he shares them with the Avengers. They sit and they talk to each other, and they eat _Teddy-Grahams_ , and no one calls him weak, or pathetic, or undeserving.

“Are you okay?” he asks Bucky after six months of healing at the tower. Bucky’s body has changed. He lost most of his muscle mass and is now down to where he was before the war. Tony gave him an arm to mach his size, and he looks happy. There are circles under his eyes, and Steve knows he still has nightmares, but he looks happy.

“I’m…getting better,” Bucky settles on eventually. “I’ve been talking to Sam a lot. I’ve been getting some aggression out downstairs.” There’s a gym there that Steve’s seen Bucky in.  Bucky’s quiet for a little while. “Hydra screwed us over.” Steve laughs. He nods his head and feels a bit sick for laughing, but he does laugh. “I was jealous,” Bucky admits softly.

“Of?”

“You.” Bucky bites his lip. He’s uncomfortable. “You had seventy years of beautiful memories, and I had seventy years of…horror.” Steve feels his heart clench painfully. He’s not sure his lungs are working properly. “But when it was over,” Bucky continues, “When it was over, I was free. I was done being in pain, I was done hurting…and you…you left your heaven and came here instead. I was jealous…I wanted it so badly…and yet you’re still-” Steve needs to avert his eyes. He’s struggling to draw breath, and Bucky wraps his arms around him.

“We’re both messed up, Buck,” Steve manages.

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry,”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,” Steve says. Bucky laughs.

“We both know that’s not true.” They are healing.

It takes time, but they are healing.

On the four-year anniversary of Steve being defrosted, the Avengers ask him to join them on a trip to Brooklyn. He and Bucky go, and they wrap up in warm clothes as they follow the Avengers to a cemetery. It takes less then ten minutes to walk to the tombstone that they wanted him to see.

It’s rose granite. There’s an engraving of all of the children together on the top of the tombstone. Their names are written out underneath it. A quote is at the bottom, and Steve feels his heart compress as he looks at it.

“You lost your family, man,” Sam tells him. “They deserve a proper memorial.” They leave him there. Bucky squeezes his arm and joins the others at the front gate. He’s left staring at the stone, and accepting what it means.

 

James G. T. J. Rogers

Catherine B. Rogers

Theodore G. Rogers

Sarah M. Rogers

Ian S. Rogers

Meghan R. Rogers

_“But I being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”_

 

He reaches out and touches the tombstone. He closes his eyes and he can see the fire that swept them all away. He can feel the burns as they licked across his skin. He’s alive. His family is dead. He had a family. They were real, and they died in a fire. “Goodbye,” he tells them. “I love you,” he chokes on the words. “I will never forget you. But,” he takes deep breath, “I can live for you.” His hand drops down to his side and he turns to walk away.

He meets his friends at the gate. “You all right?” Sam asks. “We were worried it mighta been too much.”

“It was perfect,” he tells them. “Thank you.” Bucky nudges his arm and he wraps one arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says again. He gives them all hugs, even Tony. Their kindness means more than he can say. He appreciates everything they’ve done.  “This is real,” he tells them softly. “This is real.”

**Author's Note:**

> Want to send me a note? A prompt? Find me on tumblr: falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com


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